NARCOLEPTIC DOGS PRESS, IN ASSOCIATION WITH COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED, PRESENTS... WARDEN: AN ASH UNIVERSE COMIC (ASH property of Dave Van Domelen. Warden property of Matt Rossi and Dave Van Domelen. All Rights Reserved.) ISSUE NUMBER FOUR: THE DRUMS OF HATE (Warning - An expletive appears in this story) Call me the dark intruder Call me your haunted sleep Call me your monster zero Call me anything you need *Rob Zombie, THE GREAT AMERICAN NIGHTMARE (Cover: Warden is surrounded on all sides. To his left, the membership of the Oblivious Paragang and Bathory, to his right the NYPD, and in front of him the Onyx Eye Tong. He is battered, but unbowed, holding his bundi and hook sword crossed in front of him.) January 20th, 2023 10:32 PM 154 Rockefeller Plaza. Outside the buildings, in the ruined ice rink that dominated the center of the Plaza, members of the Oblivious concealed themselves as best they could. They were down to half-strength now, because the squad that had gone to wait for Warden at his friend Jimmy's dojo hadn't come back. Kogutt and Sparker had lead that group. That meant that two more of the powerful Supernormal members of the gang were down, and probably dead. Warden had been trying to keep from killing anyone, but he'd done Raoul, and he probably was really pissed about what they'd done to his friend. Barnes huddled in the darkness generated by 'Shades' Brenton, a new recruit that Bathory'd accepted in from the Razors. Warden had started his attacks on the city's Paragangs with the Razors, and he'd weakened them so badly that Bathroy'd moved in on their turf. Unfortunately, this had left her own group open to Warden's attacks, so she'd accepted half of the Razors into her gang. What she'd done with the rest was too gory to think about, Barnes knew. After all, he'd been there, telling her which ones were Universal Donors. The rest she'd just drank. The sight of the slight girl burying her face in the ruined chest of Snake Escutia, who hadn't been a small man, had sickened him. Next to Barnes, Antoon and Milan were cleaning their guns. Antoon slammed the clip into his USAS-22 Full-Auto Combat Shotgun and smiled, his eyes shifting from color to color. Antoon's power was a strange one...he could make anything he could see glow. Sometimes useful for targeting... sometimes not. He could also, if he had the time, make the glow burn through metal, but that was the problem, getting the time. Maria Milan, standing next to him, had claw-like bone spurs growing from the back of her forearms, and she'd also inherited the lethal speed and strength of a Tasmanian Tiger, the fur patterns of which were growing out of her back. Milan was marked by Bathory. She scared the shit out of Barnes. "When do you think he'll get here?" "What makes you think he's still alive, Barnes?" "Don't plizz me, Milan. You'se up the scorch. Me and you'se seen him move, and if Kogutt and Sparker ain't back yet, I say he blinked them." "Barnes has a point." Brenton whispered from the inky cloud that surrounded him. "He took apart the Razors like a cheap feed. Paula and Random together had a hard time with him." "That was before you joined _us_, Sneak-Snack," Antoon bristled. "The Oblivious can deal with some eyeless gink, powers or no powers." They didn't notice a shape scuttling along behind the statue. When the ice had been there, which was a time none of them had ever seen, people used to ice skate down there. Ice Skating. Not something these kids did. A different kind of blade slid free from a back-sheath now. Warden stood there, "assensing" his surroundings. Paul Mahler of MetaPsych might have called it an active probe, but Thomas Malfeas didn't know what those words meant. He did know, however, how many of the Oblivious were concealed around the rink and where they were. Barnes, Antoon, Milan and Brenton were thirty yards away, behind that railing. Paula Carbary and Random, concealed beneath the storm-grating. "Mauler" Phipps, Hardy and David Morris next to the double doors leading to Bathory. Jaelle the Raptor, Gumprich and the ERGH were the closest, as they were mobile, slowly patrolling the grounds of the Plaza. The odds of taking them out were difficult to gauge. The ERGH could extend electrical charges down the chain he carried with him, making a crude but lethal taser out of it, and Jaelle was one of Bathory's chosen, gifted with attributes taken from a Gryfalcon. Gumprich, whose Paranormal abilities were all based on invention, was carrying a strange harness around with him that boosted his strength and reflexes. They were formidable. Warden smiled, and it had no humor in it. He chose to work on Jaelle first. Her already keen vision he boosted, flinging it up until the flickering blue-white light of the moon looked like an atomic detonation. She screeched, her voice ringing off of the walls, and everyone's blood froze. Everyone except Warden. Gumprich tried to activate his harness, but he couldn't feel anything anymore, and his fingers flopped around like stunned fish. As he felt panic gripping him, a silver and gold coin weighted around the edge slammed directly into his forehead, and the pain suddenly came back, maximized so that it felt like his head had popped open. He sank to his knees as his body thrashed around in shock, and the ERGH tried to tell where the attacks were coming from. Phipps led his squad away from the doors, running to where the sounds of fighting were. Therefore, he didn't see a black duster fluttering behind him, its owner pleased at the effect the distraction had. Warden's mind told him that the doors weren't trapped or alarmed, although there was a rather lethal series of traps behind them that had been left unengaged. Probably to let him get in. He slid in through the doors and bent to the keypad next to them. Wires extended to the frame, the keypad contained certain oils on five of the keys. He could tell which of the oils was driest, and which was the most viscous, and from that he knew which had been pressed first. His fingers replicated the series, even though he couldn't read them. Unseen by his non-existent eyes, the code was 56123. The metal around the door began to hum with voltage. It wouldn't _stop_ them, but it would certainly occupy them for a while, and he wanted as much time as possible. Knowing that she was above him, and that she knew he'd entered the building, he headed up the stairs. January 20th, 2023 11:03 PM Bathory was lying with her eyes closed, purring like the feline she felt she was. Her flawless skin was getting the massage of a lifetime. Perhaps _several_ lifetimes. She smiled at her in-joke. After all, who knew how long she was going to live? In the stories, Vampires were practically immortal. Maybe she would be too. Damn, but he had good hands. She had to give him that. He was getting all of that nasty tension worked right out of her muscles. Soon, once this whole Warden business was settled, and she had the eyeless Paranormal as her private hatchetman, she'd reward him for the good job he was doing. She heard a faint sound outside of her office. _Damn, he got here quicker than I expected._ As she stood up, pulling her sheet up and wrapping it around her naked body, the dead body of Warren Savoie, the only member of the Oblivious she'd left inside, came hurtling through the door. Fragments of wood and glass from the impact scattered all along the floor, slick in his blood. She licked her lips at the sight. "So good of you to come, Thomas. You don't _mind_ if I call you Thomas, do you?" He walked into the room, weapons at the ready, and cocked his head in a way that would have been a stare directly at her, if he had eyes. The bandana covering the blank empty-socketed space didn't convey the threat that she knew was there. "Oh, you must be looking for James? We've been having _such_ a good time waiting for you. Haven't we, James?" Jimmy stepped out from behind Bathory, his mind absolutely blank, the fuzz over his thoughts so strong that Warden knew there was no reaching him. He didn't sense the corruption in Jimmy that he had in Raoul and Jaelle, however...his blood was his own, even if his mind wasn't. Warden felt his chest contract at what he knew was coming. Bathory smiled. "James...would you be so kind as to show Thomas the way out? The window will do." Jimmy moved, and Thomas stood there and let him. ++Jimmy...don't do this. I can help you.++ Jimmy was kicking now, a high crescent kick from Tai Ch'i, and Thomas blocked it with his forearm. Bathory had done something to boost Jimmy's strength and speed to nearly-Paranormal levels, but Warden was more than equal to it, increasing himself to stay faster and stronger. He sheathed the bundi and spun, using the moves he'd learned from the two Onyx Eye thugs on the rooftop that morning. As Jimmy leapt over his leg, Thomas was already twisting his body, flipping forward onto his arms and cracking his legs up like a whip, pinning Jimmy's head between them. He then slammed his friend and roommate's face into the floor, hoping that would take the fight out of him. Instead he was caught by an elbow, which nearly cracked his ribs. His entire right side flared up in pain, but he immediately shut off the sense of it. Pain was a luxury he couldn't afford until Jimmy was safe. And he could sense the pain of "Mauler" Phipps, trying to get back inside the building and taking a handful of voltage doing it. Time was running out. January 20th, 2023 11:17 PM Across the Plaza, three men and a woman in grey Ghi were watching Bathory's gang make fools of themselves. First, they'd seen Thomas fake them out and sneak into the building, then they'd watched as the idiots patrolled the entire Plaza trying to find their attacker, and finally Varru'Ke had had to laugh when she saw Phipps nearly electrocute himself on the door. He was lying there unconscious, and the rest of the gang was attacking the metal guard-plates that had swung down over the entrance once Phipps had activated the security device. She turned to the other three members of the Tong and smiled bitterly. "And these fools are to eliminate the eyeless face for us?" Jao'Ke didn't think much of their chances either, but he never would have dared say so. _He_ was not the beloved daughter of Barrukh, after all, and his insolence would not be as quickly forgiven. "It seemed sufficient to remove the impediment that he merely be otherwise occupied." "And it occurred to no one that the barbarians would take _our_ target as well?" "It did not seem to matter who killed Willot, as long as an example was made." "But no one will know it was us, Jao'Ke." Her voice was now calm and reasoned, her bout of pique once again controlled. Varru'Ke was one of the more promising members of the Tong, but her very passion sometimes worked against her. "The people of Chinatown will not see the futility of opposing the Onyx Eye...they will, instead, be afraid of _these_ fools. I find this unsatisfying." "What do you suggest we do?" Varru'Ke watched as the Oblivious finally breached the door and headed inside. "I say we follow them in and kill all of them. The barbarians, the _Ch'ianh Shich_ who leads them, the round-eye who defies us...and the eyeless face." She smiled at the thought. "_That_ will teach the people of Chinatown to rely on no one but us." The three shadow-shapes nodded their approval. It seemed a good plan. Like the ghosts they made of men, they dropped to the ground and headed into the building. January 20th, 2023 11:21 PM Warden was winning, finally. Whatever it was that Bathory had done to Jimmy, it hadn't transcended the one human limitation that was the most important: stamina. She had expected the Oblivious to have reached her by now, and so hadn't planned on prolonged combat between her thrall and his roommate. But Thomas had engaged the security system. So the Oblivious were forced to fight their way past the automated defenses...and they were being slowed down rather heavily by them. Chain guns and robot drones can do that to you. And they also lacked Warden's enhanced senses to tell them where and when to move to avoid the danger. Jimmy's right hand slipped past Warden's guard, but grazed harmlessly past his chin, and Warden unleashed a Chi'ao Tsan nerve strike that snapped into Jimmy's left temple like a blade. Every muscle in his body locked in place, and he fell to the floor, unable to move. "Very impressive, Thomas." Bathory was crouched on top of the massage table, where she'd watched the fight with a mixture of lust and anger. "You've somehow managed to keep the Oblivious occupied, you killed my bodyguard, _and_ you beat James without killing him. That leaves you with only one opponent." Thomas turned his head away from her, sensing that the Oblivious were almost to the penthouse floor...and that someone was following them, people as hard to sense as the attackers on the roof had been, people who moved with serpentine grace. The Onyx Eye Tong. They would both be there soon. "Who?" Thomas pointed his face at Bathory. "Me." She leapt, spitting like a Lynx, huge claws sliding from the inside of her fingers, barely missing his torso. Bathory was faster than Raoul had been, a _lot_ faster. It took a great deal of his power and skill to avoid her flashing claws as she struck downward, trying to rip his face open, and when he stepped back away from that, she ripped his left shoulder open clean to the bone. He flipped up and away from her, leaving her standing and licking his blood from her hand. The rip closed up somewhat and scabbed over, but some toxin on her talons kept his powers from healing it all the way, and it throbbed a dull red. He drew his bundi, making his right arm into an extra two feet of edge, and tried to keep her attention away from Jimmy. It didn't work. She smiled and lowered herself, letting her claws trace lightly over Jimmy's pulsing Carotid. "What's to stop me from ripping out his blood, lover? What say you and I stop this dance and get better acquainted? I think you'll come to like working for me. Raoul did. And I can tell you've got the stuff for this line of work." Her lips, stained with Thomas' blood, formed a red heart around her fang-heavy grin. "I can just _taste_ it." Warden didn't know what to do. She was a telepath, and maybe too strong of one for him to do anything against. He couldn't let Jimmy die, however, and just as urgent in his head were the commands of the Mentor. He couldn't let Bathory win. It was simply impossible. Even trying to contemplate it made his head hurt worse than his poisoned shoulder. So he focused on the pain, really felt it, studied every throb and twitch of the flesh and bone. ++NO.++ Bathory shuddered at the attack, the pure concentrated pain-message that rattled against her mind. It had been a while since she'd felt pain, and it took her just long enough to get past it that Warden could leap, kicking her in the chest, flinging her away from James' prone body. As she got back to her feet, the Oblivious came rushing in the doorway. In full combat with the Onyx Eye. Phipps was bleeding from thirteen stab wounds, six of them fatal, his monumental anger and superhuman endurance the only things keeping him on his feet. Random slashed with his knives, managing to cut into Jao'Ke's arm badly, trying to get revenge for the knife that had buried itself in Paula Carbray's forehead. Of the members who'd entered the building, only six were left, and three Onyx Eye, Marrat'Ke having died at Milan's bone spurs. Lin'Ta'ke and Jaelle the Raptor were evenly matched, but Barnes was just trying to save his own ass, and the ERGH had lost an arm when he'd tried to hit Varru'Ke with his chain. Bathory looked up in shock at the melee. "I _knew_ I couldn't trust you!" Warden ignored her. Instead, he sheathed his bundi and lifted Jimmy up over his shoulder. Thankfully he could still cut off the pain signal from the weight. What he couldn't shut off was the enraged wailing of the Mentor, which chose that moment to appear in his head. ++they're all here where are you going???++ ++I have to get James away.++ ++they're all here!++ He chose to ignore it. The Chinese throwing coin shattered the window, and even as one of the Onyx Eye, a woman, tried to bury a knife in his back he leapt through it. The knife barely missed Jimmy and himself, and then Warden was falling. Boosting his strength, he kicked the wall with both feet, flinging himself into a flip that carried him out and away from the building. His arc was slightly off due to the added weight of Jimmy, but he compensated by stretching his body out, letting the air slow his fall. His long coat fluttered and snapped in the air, and he felt the shape of the statue beneath him. Above it were the cables that had once gone to powering the lights on a Christmas tree, something Thomas knew about from the minds of others, but had never experienced for himself. The cables were dead now. He grabbed one, and as he expected, it snapped. Clutching the cable, he swung, letting the speed of his fall arc him, yanking up his feet. The ground slid past only an inch from his knees. They'd be torn off if they hit it, but they didn't, and the cable began heading up again. Thomas let go, aiming himself for the statue and landing on the top of it. The shock spread up his legs, and sprained his right calf, but it was better than being dead. In his arms, Jimmy groaned, beginning to come back to awareness. "Tommy? What're we doing here?" "I think we're leaving." He sensed the fighting continuing up inside the building, as the Onyx Eye withdrew, and knew that he would have to end his enemies once and for all. Before they ended him. January 21st, 2023, 5:27 AM John Kelly Jr. groaned as the vid-phone next to his bed began trilling at him. He tried ignoring it, stuffing a pillow over his ears, and even threw his gun at it, but he missed and it kept ringing. Finally, he dragged himself out of bed and walked over to the damn thing. "Kelly. This had better be good, damn it." "How's a gang war in Rockefeller Plaza between the Oblivious and the Onyx Eye sound?" "Damn." Kelly rubbed his face with his hands, still faintly hoping that this was all a dream. Melissa Tao, the head of the Chinatown Precinct's Flying Squad, was peering out at him with too much reality. "Still, why'd you call me? Come to think of it, who called _you_ in on it?" "Downtown thought I should get involved, what with being the local expert on the Onyx Eye." "Yeah, but Gwendolyn Thompson is the expert on the Oblivious...again, why me?" "Your boy was there. Apparently, the whole gang war is over who gets to kill him." Kelly woke up rather quickly. "Where are you now?" "Still on site, 154 Rock. How quick can you get here?" "I'm already there." January 21st, 2023 6:44 AM Kelly stood behind the Plexiglas mirror and watched Thompson, a rather hard nosed woman who reminded him of an old late-eighties vid he'd watched once called _Prime Suspect_, except that her accent was pure Queens, NY, instead of the Queen's English. She was circling the poor bastard who was, except for Bathory and a couple of her drones, the last member of the Oblivious. The last _living_ member, and the unlucky slob that his boss had ditched in her escape. Barnes was sweating heavily and shaking. For one thing, he was a jazz-head, and he'd been kept well away from any for at least two days now. Also, he'd gotten himself a rather nasty cut across his right hand, and he'd watched his gang get turned into ground chuck by the Tong, after they'd gotten themselves truly humiliated by Warden. It generally wasn't being a good life. "So the Onyx Eye and Warden are working together?" Thompson's voice sounded like a droid's. The woman had less personality than a coffeepot, but she was effective. Kelly respected her instincts, even though he was already pretty sure that Warden would not mix well with the Onyx Eye. Melissa'd agreed with him when he'd picked up Barnes at 154 Rock. "Warden and the Onyx Eye? No way. They don't take anyone who isn't full-blood Chinese. And from your reports, he's a Russkie, right?" Tao had said. "Half Russian, half Khazak." "Nope. They wouldn't go near recruiting him. They'd _respect_ him, but there's no way they'd pollute themselves with a round eye, even an eyeless one." "Shit, word gets around fast." He dragged himself out of his memory and looked at Barnes' terrified face. "No way! They're the ones who told Bathory where to find him! I guess they wanted us to take him out, and then we'd get taken out by them once he'd softened us up. It was grazzly, all the grimgrue all over the place...they killed Antoon and Paula before we knew what was happening?" "You know where Warden lives?" Thompson's voice didn't betray any excitement, but Kelly felt it for both of them. It was dashed fairly soon. "No way. They told Bathory, Bathory told Kogutt and Sparker, and that's all I know. I don't even know what happened to them! Man, Warden warned me to get out of the gang. He said I should go into medicine or something...." Kelly turned off the screen and slumped against the wall. DAMN! He'd hoped that Barnes could have led him to Warden. The kid was making some serious enemies. It was time to get this over with. Lost in his thoughts, he didn't notice Melissa Tao enter the room, with a tall, heavyset woman behind her. "John?" "What?" "This is someone I think you should meet." Melissa gestured. "Andrea Rogulein, MetaPsych. She's here to co-ordinate with you on the Warden case." "Great. Just what I need, _more_ psychics." Andrea and Melissa exchanged puzzled glances. January 21, 2023 10:01 AM After a quick stop at the Dojo to pick up some clothes and other essentials (Like all of Warden's weapons and gear) Jimmy and Thomas had hopped a cab to Bronxville, north of Yonkers, and the Willot family home, which was currently deserted. The Willots owned the house through a labyrinthine series of holding companies, and his mother and father hadn't bothered to return to the place in _years_ so it seemed to be the place to go. Jimmy's skull hurt, and he had the beginnings of an impressive bruise on his forehead. Plus, as he sat on the couch, he wasn't sure if he was angry with Tommy or not. On the one hand, Jimmy'd gotten _himself_ into the trouble with the Tong, and had dragged Tommy into it. On the other hand, brawling with Paragangs had been entirely Tommy's idea...or rather, Tommy and this 'Mentor' who kept telling him what to do. Apparently ol' 'Mentor' was still pissed off that Tommy'd chosen to save him rather than staying and killing people. It was all really fucking crazy. Finally Jimmy decided to worry about it later. He needed rest, and he figured that he and Tommy were probably even when it came to danger that they'd gotten each other into. He could hear Tommy working out in the upstairs gym his mom had put in for him when he was ten and decided he was into the Martial Arts. Nodding off, Jimmy almost didn't hear the door open. But the panic that welled up jerked him back to awareness, and he leapt to his feet to see that Tommy was already poised on the bannister...and that it was his sister walking in the door, backpack over one shoulder. She regarded the eyeless man on the staircase, and then looked at Jimmy. "Bro...what have you two gotten into now?" NEXT ISSUE: Warden takes the war to the Onyx Eye. Kelly and Rogulein track the Oblivious. And the 'Mentor' is revealed! Written by Matthew "Badger" Rossi Writer's Notes: The Unbearable Lightness of Me I'm sitting here right now working on Warden #4-#6, and I need a break to think about the final fight, which I intend to read like a movie I'd seen once but which is in fact starting to read more like something written by Thom Jones (Pugilist at Rest, Cold Snap) or maybe Hubert Selby, if they wrote stories about blind telepaths who can alter their enemies' sensory perceptions and who learn how to do anything anyone around them can do. It makes me think about how long Warden, as a series, has taken me to complete. And whether or not I should have been trying to complete it. As a comparison, I started Warden in late 94. Between issue #1 and #2 there is more than a year separation. #3 came out roughly a week after #2, and #4 is over a year separated from that. That's a huge gap between issues. And it's odd, because I do _think_ about Warden quite a bit. I have other stories I'd like to tell using him. But I just can't seem to sit down and write him with the same intensity that I do my other series. I blame this on the 'Matt Rossi LS curse.' If I conceive of a story as having an end point, for some reason I don't seem to be able to get as excited as I can when it is open ended and I can let new ideas creep into my head, re-vitalizing the writing when the story I'm on begins to bore me. So how do I get over this horrible mental block? I'm glad you asked. As of #4, Warden is now no longer a Limited Series. [And I couldn't be happier. - Dave] Whew! That takes a LOT of pressure off. (Sure, it means I have to catch up with TWO YEARS of ASH continuity, but I can do that. [Especially since I wasn't much more active than Badger in those two years - Dave again]) Now I can set my character free to run about and muck up everyone's lives. Including my own. I compare this to a line from a Bruce Lee movie. (Hell, when I write Warden, I think of classic 70's Martial Arts films. I can't help it.) In this film, and I don't remember each one, Bruce is either teaching or being taught how to hit someone. The line is as follows: "Don't try to hit someone. Try to hit something about a foot *behind* them." From now on, I'm not trying to write whatever issue of Warden I'm working on...I'm trying to write the issue *behind* it. Matt "Badger" Rossi, signing off. [Editor's Notes: I've now read this story, in some incarnation or other, several dozen times over a couple years. Sometimes I've forgotten it hasn't been posted, and started to refer to it in ASH or various FAQs. }-> But now, by gum it's ready to post. I've mainly rewrapped this version of the story (Badger's FTP is old) and made a few typo-fixes and stuff like that. Dave]