Blood On Borrowed Wings: A Dark Fantasy Thriller (14 page)

Plans exist, they are not made,

Discovered even as they're played.

And who is man to ruminate,

That he'd control a rhyme or fate.

Our courses plotted,

As all stars burn.

Corpses, rotted.

We wait our turn.

From Life to Living

Shacklock & Groess

Leonora was good at her job.

 
‘Shouldn’t Vedett have called by now?’ she asked.

Velena nodded and went to check the telephone again, like the act of doing so would expedite contact. It did not.

‘Something is wrong,’ said Leonora.

‘This is what happens. When you have to go underground you start to get dirty. But I have every faith in Vedett, and whomever he recruits. He has never let me down.’

‘Maybe, but he gives me the creeps.’

Velena walked over to the ornate picture window. As she spoke her breath fogged the glass. ‘Sometimes I wish one of us had wings, so we could just fly down there and be done with it.’

‘And end up as an entrée at Chez Windsharks?’

‘Might be better than dealing with him, though.’ She wiped her sleeve across the fogged glass to see outside. ‘He disgusts me too, but needs must as the devil flies, and anyway, I did not have a choice.’

Seconds passed in silence as Velena looked out into the night. Leonora stared expectantly at the back of her head. She knew when to prompt and suggest just as she knew now to be quiet and wait. The Governor broke the silence.

‘I think we should go down there.
'

‘But I don’t see…’

‘Show the electorate that I do this now. Be more visible. Show I want to be involved down there.’

‘But your diary says...’

‘Hush Leo, our passage has already been arranged. Pack your things and meet the porter out front in fifteen minutes. Now please excuse me, I have a bag to pack and call to make. And don’t worry about my diary, it is very forgiving this time of year.’

This time of year? With an election looming? A crisis brewing on the horizon? Public opinion hitting an all-time low? Being inextricably linked with the scandalous actions of the past couple of days? Leonora mentioned none of those things. She knew when to be quiet.

‘Governor Rose,’ said Leonora, who gritted her teeth and bowed demurely as she left the room, giving no clue at the effort and self-control it took to close the door quietly, undemonstratively behind her.

She was very good at her job.

The eye of the storm may well be calm, but you can lose your head trying to get there.

Rain on Dead Leaves

Macgregor Winter

Vedett knew she would be waiting for his call, was probably even next to the telephone, but she let it ring seven times before answering. She spoke to someone else before addressing him on the telephone, probably for effect.

‘
... ready and will be there in a second
... Sorry about that, Governor Rose speaking.’

Vedett said nothing.

‘Vedett?’

‘I am here.’

‘What is going on?’

Vedett said nothing.

‘Look, if there’s a problem I…’

‘Firstly, of course there is a fucking problem, the man you wanted, shall we say,
detaining
, has decided to check out, leaving an unsightly mess.’

‘The guards?’

‘All over the place. They are the unsightly mess.’

 
Velena paused.

‘Literally,’ added Vedett.

‘Good.’

‘Good? I’ve had to send two of my top people on a misdirected snatch and grab and now they are dicking around with mops and buckets cursing me and cleaning the place, and your mess, up.’

‘It was to be expected.’

‘Well it would have been courteous if you had let me know.’

‘I am letting you know now.’

Vedett said nothing.

He took a sip of water and looked in the mirror at the way his Adam’s apple slaked up and down as he swallowed. Then straightened his hair.

‘I have ways of finding him, people I can use. It will cost you extra,’ Vedett said.

‘Do it.’

‘I already have.’

‘And you are certain th...’

‘Don’t test my patience any more than you have already this evening, Governor.’ He spat the title like it was acrimonious bile and hung up the phone. He walked over to an extravagant mirror framed by maroon-gilded wooden carved lilies. He was shocked at his wild eyes and the dark, brooding, almost reptilian anger staring back at him.

‘Coyle will not fuck this up,’ he said to himself.

Then his smile spread wanly, entirely bereft of warmth, like a low and sickly winter's sun.

‘He daren’t,’ he said.

For men, life is a constant battle between the head and the dick.

And the dick always, always wins.

Article - Material World, Immaterial Girls: Man Matters

G. Thermin

We ate unremarkable food at an unremarkable diner, the food functional, just like the scant conversation. Fuel and distraction, then grabbed another taxi, both eager to be on our way.

Pan paid the driver with one of her numerous fifties and it transpired that he did not have change. She dismissed him with a backhanded wave and expletive.

We stepped into the Lowlands street.

The late afternoon traffic had succeeded in getting most people home through the bottlenecks and tumult of activity that greeted the end of every working day. The buildings on this side of the city were high and dull. Grey monoliths erected as monuments to signify Lowlands’ worldly standing, produced for the masses but ultimately featureless, cheap and dull, like the people that lived and worked within them.

Crossbow bolts could be seen protruding from some of the wood in the structures, popping out of lintels and doorjambs like pointers, or hiding just beneath painted surfaces like feathered splinters behind fingernails. The street had a worn, sagging feel to it, like if you brushed up against the brickwork or stone it would sigh and crumble, just give up.

Some of the buildings here were contradictions. The highly wrought facades of inner city restaurants and bars sometimes added a Nimbus City like, affluent sheen to their appearance that quickly disappeared once out of the multi-coloured neon glow. I suppose it’s like that in any city, though, how often the gold and silver lights are at the fore, whilst out back, people piss and fuck in the alleyways. Big rats dine on leftovers. And someone lies in their own bile, freezing, trying to fight off the cold to live, or wanting to die, yards away from where we order our drinks, tut over the inequities of Lowlands’ society and talk about how short sighted the rest of the world is.

Sometimes people are contradictions too.
   

 
I followed Pan to the main doors of her apartment block.

‘So this is where it all happens?’ I said, immediately sorry for the tone.

‘It’s my home,’ said Pan, ‘and if you are not going to treat it, or me, with some respect, then you can grab another taxi, blow fifty of your own hard earned credits and crawl back under whichever rock you currently live under.’

I thought about the hotel room I had been camped in: its single bed, its floral carpet, its small wardrobe and tiny desk, the window that would not open and the toilet that never flushed on the first attempt, the enfeebled shower and the engorged manager, the place’s odour of biscuits and ancient sex and loneliness.

It was not home.

It was functional.

I said nothing.

She flicked her hair then pushed at the double doors. They were locked. She depressed a small button set in the door’s recess marked reception and waited. A tinny voice eventually responded.

‘Welcome to the Dionysus Apartments. My name is…’

Pan pressed the button again: ‘Can it Gray and let me in without me having to listen to the bullshit blurb. It’s been a long day.’

There was a deeper buzzing noise and the sound of a hefty lock being mechanically disengaged. Pan pushed at the doors again, this time successfully. Inside, the lobby was dark, the colour of stained wood and ochre. It looked like the designer had aimed for warm and classic and missed by a considerable distance. It was like an old time country lodge, but the wood had imbibed too much tobacco and the tawny paint was peeling. Painted, flaking scales hung in corners and clung on beneath sills, cracked artex grey at the ridges revealed haphazard stucco that peered through lathe boards, support beams and empty space. It was as if the building was showing you glimpses of its bare ribs or insides, to prove it was anatomically correct, if a little unwell.
 

Gray lit a cigarette.

‘You still on the minties?’ asked Pan.

‘Menthols are like a breath mint and a smoke at the same time,’ he said. He gave a nicotine dulled, yellow smile that reminded me of the ochre and lathe boards on show, dirty improbable gaps and impossible angles the colour of slow rotting death. It looked like they had all been knocked out, soaked in urine and then reinstalled in a hurry. He caught me looking at him.

‘Lost my milk teeth early,’ he said.

I said nothing.

‘G, I’ve lost my key, again. You couldn’t get me the spare out of your box could you? Could you do that for me?’

‘Again? Pan you know there’s a surcharge we have to make with every spare. It means I have got to go get some more cut, drag them back, file their numbers, log them in, invoice the books, receipt them…’

Pan played with the curl in her hair and leaned forward. Her red dress clung to her body tightly, but Gray tried to see down the slender gap at her chest anyway.

‘Pan, you’re already down to your last spare, I will probably have to get three or four cut, though maybe twenty might be more like it the way you lose….’

Pan cocked her head demurely.

He didn’t stand a chance.

‘It’s against building regs and I would lose my job if anyone found out…’

He was on his way into the back office to retrieve the spare even whilst he muttered feeble objections.

‘Gray you are a lifesaver.’

He mumbled something unintelligible in the back office and, after a short while and one or two curses, emerged with her spare key. As he held it out he leaned forward, eyes closed, hiding the tombstone jumble of his mouth behind puckered, cracked lips.

She blew him a kiss and was on her way to the stairs before his eyes had opened.

I followed, concerned he might try to extract some kind of similar payment from me. He sneered at me as I passed him on the way to the stairs. It was a look that suggested jealousy, because I was going upstairs with Pan and contempt because I was paying.

I winked at him to perpetuate his misconception, turned my back and started the ascent.

Pan opened the door to her third floor apartment with her last, but free, key. Climbing the stairs had awakened the pain in my leg and it was bearing its thin, sharp teeth again.

Inside I was expecting something gaudy, vivacious, lacking subtlety or taste, something befitting her trade and brash personality; a room that would slap me in the face, drip sarcasm and spill beer on my crotch.

Something, well,
slutty
I suppose.
 

I was disappointed.

The small entrance corridor opened out into a wide, open plan room. It was clean and tidy, neat to an exaggerated extreme, entirely uncluttered by the usual menagerie of female trinkets and potpourri charms.

‘Shoes,’ said Pan.

I kicked mine off and she positioned them neatly alongside hers on a small, fringed rug by the door.

Pan’s apartment was a professional living space, aesthetically neutral, beiges and creams, wide sofas and thin lamps, low tables and understated elegance. Small pictures hung on the walls and they too whispered. One was of a tree, another of a boat, another of an empty chair. They were all generic, non-descript, almost barren. Everything was clean and crisp. Neutral or practical. Aligned. Impersonal.

‘Is this the show apartment, or does someone actually live here?’ I asked.

Pan dropped her keys into a clean white porcelain bowl that was, of course, otherwise empty, turned to face me and put her hands on her hips.

‘Now if you are a guest here, there are a few rules for you to stick to. No shoes, no sarcasm and…’

‘No heavy petting?’

‘No. I was trying to find a nice way of saying “get a bath, you stink,” but sadly came up short.’

I grimaced.

‘It will help your leg too and give me a bit of peace.’

‘Ladies first,’ I said.

‘What, and give you a chance to nose around my apartment looking for my incriminating memoir or that cutesy little baby photograph of me with my foo-foo out?’

‘Have you got one?’

‘What a foo-foo?’

‘No, a memoir.’

‘I can’t remember.’

I relented, ‘Where is it then?’

‘Well, if you don’t know now, soldier boy, you never…’

‘I meant the bathroom.’

‘Through that door, last door on the left. Follow your nose.’

I nodded and walked through the lounge door and into another narrow hall illuminated by a striking stained glass window at the far end.

I passed the open door of the kitchen on my left. A long, ornate pew and a low chunky wooden table which, supporting nothing but an empty, fluted vase, occupied the space in the visible corner. There was a small door to my right, its dimensions suggested a small utility space was hidden behind. Further along the corridor were two doors on the right. Both were closed and I guessed they were the bedrooms. I went to open the nearest door.

‘What do you want to drink?’ Pan’s voice easily penetrated the lounge wall and door between us.

I jerked my hand back like I was a child caught in the act of pilfering a cookie from a mother’s sacred jar. ‘What you got?’

‘Pretty much everything you could want.’

‘Then surprise me,’ I shouted, tilting my head up to the ceiling like that would help the sound travel backwards.

‘I hate it when people say that,’ said Pan right behind me.

I jumped a little and felt like she knew I had been trying to snoop around. I hid my guilt with feigned indifference.

‘When people say that it’s never really a request for a surprise, it is more of a guess-what-I-like-to-drink kind of request and I am too tired to guess. Or surprise. Now what do you want, soldier boy? Before I leave you with a bendy straw and the bathwater?’

I laughed. ‘Whisky. Ice. Not water. Please.’

‘Coming up,’ said Pan and made her way back towards the kitchen.

I made my way the length of the corridor towards the bathroom. A stained glass window threw rhombuses of colour down the narrow hallway. Green triangles distorted on the architrave and windowsill. Yellow rays punctured the gloom like torchlight from a bygone era. Sombre reds seeped, blood-like, into the edge of my vision and nestled there like cataracts, milky and intrusive.

The mosaic rainbow angel, in flight. Fields of arable land and pastures at his feet, the sun angled in from behind his back, his wings were golden, flame coloured dark blue slivers denoted movement at his wingtips. He fought with a twisted, fiery serpent. The snake’s eyes were gone and a black forked-tongue darted out and flashed at the angel’s cheek, drawing blood, a wire-thin thread of crimson glass. Smoke poured from the snake’s empty sockets, its serpentine visage twisted in a victorious, luminescent, salutary grin.

I looked away. Something cold crawled up my back as I felt like someone had got too close and whispered something softly in my ear. My shoulders reflexively hunched and I shuddered. Gooseflesh ran up my forearms. The convulsion passed and I turned to go into the bathroom.

Pan was watching me from down the hall. She raised my whisky glass like an amber talisman, an ice-cube clapper rang out a sweet crystal chime and she turned to go back into the lounge.

I pushed open the bathroom door and stepped inside.