Blood On Borrowed Wings: A Dark Fantasy Thriller (29 page)

It’s amazing how fast you will see your plans, friends and lunch disappear at the sound of the first gunshot.

Sergeant Braggs: Vanguard Training

A bedroom shed a rhombus of light across Doc’s back garden, but it was still dark enough for purpose. I had pulled far enough ahead to gain an advantage on my pursuer but let them have enough information, via early lane changes, to know where I was going. If the driver of the cream car showed up, then they must know Doc’s address. To know that they must have been pawing through my personal file and only one Mudhead would have done that already: Coyle.

Assumptions can be useful things, collect all the variables, apply the knowledge gleaned from previous experiences, dissect all possibilities and interactions with extraneous factors, weigh them all up, then, disregard them all with a ‘fuck it!’ and take your best wild stab in the dark guess at what is about to go down. I had assumed a number of things about my pursuer: that he was operating alone, his ego and fervent disregard for procedure meant any kind of back up would be extremely unlikely. He would also be armed, strong, overconfident and angry, yet experienced in using that to his own ends, hyper-aware and purposeful. And he would come in the back way. In my varied experience in military and police matters, the back door was the first covered by law enforcement. It was usually the door kicked open for illegal access and it was also the preferred escape hatch for fleeing interlopers or occupants with something to hide. It offered more privacy and easier access to the anonymity that the obscured alleyways and boundary fences allowed. I needed quiet and I knew I could find it here, along with a couple of other things.

Doc loved his plants and flowers. I dragged a heavy hanging basket off the external wall and pulled the chain free of its fastenings; about five foot in length, it would be more than adequate for purpose.

I opened the gate to leave it ajar then retreated to the rear of the garden, hid in the darkness hugging the back wall of the property’s boundary. I pressed myself flat against the bricks under the boughs and shadows of two overhanging trees. Dust cascaded like red sherbet over my collar and shoulders. I slowed my breathing, wrapped the chain around my fists, pulled it taut and stared at the chink of light coming through the gate and waited.

Tiredness never plays a part in lying in wait for something, for someone like this. Ask anyone who has ever played a game of hide and seek. The problem is keeping everything in check whilst you wait: your nerve, your breathing, the second-guessing and scenario-playing that fills your brain as you hear someone getting closer and closer to your position. Tiredness was not a factor now; no, something else was in play. Dread. And for all the feathers in Nimbus I could not work out why.

My stomach complained and I thought it’s rumbling was almost loud enough to give away my position to anyone passing within a mile of where I stood. It had been a while since I had eaten. My knee, now locked as I stood rigid with the wall at my back, throbbed in time with my heart. I bent it to test the damage; it was bad but serviceable. I continued flexing it as I stood there, keeping my ear keened for the hinges of the gate to groan, and hoping I would know the difference between that and the noise of my hollow, growling stomach.

I almost missed it at first, then, tucked away amidst the noises and ticks of the night I heard the faint sound of creeping footsteps. I peered through the darkness and watched an elongated shadow splay across the gap in the gate then pause. I tensed, and the tiredness, hunger and pain gnawed at the frayed edges of my aggression and patience. I willed him to come in, may have whispered it even; urged him on to where I waited, but his shadow did not move from the gate.

He lowered his crossbow. The tension on the bow must have been considerable because I watched his silhouette ratchet it back, using his foot as a lever. He knocked a bolt home and brought the sight up to eye level, turned on a torch and swung the beam across the garden, first quickly arcing past but then coming back to settle on and illuminate me. As I blinked the burned retinal images of the powerful torch away, I heard him laugh as he levelled the bow.

Then he fired.

Patience, it’s said, speeds things along.

And yet procrastination is downright wrong.

The Contradictions of Words

Prof. C. Crebbin

Croel kicked out at a doorframe in frustration, a rotten piece of wood flew up in the air and dry splinters exploded like dull fireworks.

‘We said we’d be better staying put,’ Mckeever said, not acknowledging the outburst.

‘Something is not right about this, Mac, not right at all.’

‘Vedett says in three weeks we’ll get our chance at Drake, the Doc too if it all goes to plan. We have just got to do that thing we hate most of all.’

‘What, listen to your boring monologues?’

 
‘No, Croel, wait. We have to wait.’

‘Have-tos have never sat well with me.’

‘Me neither, but Vedett, Rose, the whole government’s involved in this, Croel, there is stuff at play here that I do not much care for.’

‘Who’s to say we are not going to get framed for this too?’ Croel continued as if Mckeever had not spoken. ‘Scapegoated or offed by Vedett? We know too much and we know what happens to people with privileged information; it’s rapid promotion through the ranks or termination, in every sense of the word.’

‘Think we need to leave this alone. Let nature takes it’s course. Time our flight for the endgame and get what we want. It would be wrong to get involved in something we do not fully understand.’ Mckeever walked over to a window, the breeze cooled his face and made him think about flying again. ‘It’s just … just …’ he struggled for the right word, ‘wrong.’

‘Mckeever, wrong is where we live. It’s our home and town and country and god. It is what we do and how we fly. And I’ll be damned if I let anyone call the shots for how we spend our time anymore. We have spent too long waiting in the shadows to narrowly miss out. Too long chasing swamp rats on somebody else’s say-so. It’s time we put our own birds to the sky my friend, time to fly.’

‘We have had our fun on the way. Made good credits.’

‘True. True. But you have also lost an eye and I am losing my fucking PATIENCE!’ He kicked at the doorjamb again and this time the whole side came away from the rotting plaster, dragging the architrave from above the door with it. Dust plumed and lumps of alabaster fell.

Silence sat between them both, like an insolent child happy to be miserable and quiet.

More than anything Mckeever wanted to fly then, jump up onto the windowsill and get airborne, circle the night until he had answers or the gloom engulfed him. He turned to face Croel, his temper and frustration swarmed across his brow, knitting into a look that could smash plaster and splinter wood itself.

‘We wait,’ he hissed through gritted teeth, ‘then we strike.’

There was no more discussion.

Self-congratulation is the first step to ruination. Many men have broken their necks trying to pat themselves on the back.

The Humility Curve

Governor De Peys

The bolt disappeared into the dark. It did not clatter off the back wall or illicit the unmistakeable ping of metal-tip on stone. Coyle definitely heard it punch into flesh and a low grunt come from his target. There was no arc, its velocity so fierce, that it could not be tracked by torchlight, but he knew it had hit home.

Yes.

He moved in.

*

The bolt found the soft skin and cords of muscle above my collarbone and exploded through them easily. A white hot blistering pain seared down my left side and I felt a strange heat radiate up my neck and face. Sickly warmth. My legs wanted to give way, but I could not fall. The bolt had pinned me to the wall. When I made even the slightest movement a tumult of fireworks ignited in every single nerve ending and fibre and my legs tried to buckle; I was going nowhere, fought to remain as still as possible and keep my feet.

Then I heard his laughter.

As he walked over I noticed he was saying something to me, probably to try to assess my condition from the strain or nature of my reply. I kept quiet. He shone the torch in my contorting face and laughed some more.

‘Well what have we here? Stuck me a live one by all accounts.’

I think I grunted. I felt warm blood streaking down my back.

‘Pigs grunt,’ he said.

I whispered something.

He leaned closer to hear what I had said, his huge frame blocked out the light in the garden. His silhouette served to make him bigger somehow, a troll waiting for light to fill the blanks in.

‘I said,’ I swallowed down a spluttering cough, ‘I’m sure grunting is a sound you’re … ugh … familiar with.’ I couldn’t see his face but the laughter stopped. He stamped on my foot and then drove a battering punch into my guts. I felt the muscles and skin wrap around his fist and heard the air dessert my body. I went with the punch, arched up, tried to stand on tiptoe instead of instinctively doubling over, trying to keep my body as still as possible. The pain was unbearable. His shadowy darkness leaned in and grabbed the feathers of the bolt, barely protruding from my skin. He just tapped it with his finger, that’s all. It sent a wave of pain and nausea through me so violent that I am sure I would have vomited if I had had anything left in my treacherous stomach to put on display. As I fought to keep my balance his laughter started to fill my head with noise and the pain ripping through my frame became almost exquisitely high pitched and clangourous; it hit me.

I had to hang on for Doc. Do something. Get free to warn him about … about the whole mess … about...

I could feel my feet slipping away.

Then, out of nowhere, something hit Coyle.

How may we ever claim good judge of character when all of our true friends come to us, not through choice, but through circumstance?

The Aunt’s Debutante

C. Balliste

Coyle slowly opened his eyes and watched as the dark world gradually swam into focus. He was gagged. He was bound by something he could not see. He was still in the garden but on his side and viewed everything from a ninety-degree angle. He saw Drake being helped to lie down on the grass. The other, smaller man made him inhale something pungent and watched as Drake’s eyes flickered open.

‘Drake. Can you hear me?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Can you hear me, Drake?’

‘Doc?’

‘I need to apply a dressing and get you somewhere quickly to get that bolt out. I’ll just …

‘Doc. Wh…Where is he?’

‘Who? Ah, oh yes. He is over there, where he landed when I brought the plant pot down on his head.’

‘Is he …’

‘He is secured and bound with some chain I found near your feet.’

Coyle watched Drake retch.

‘Duh..duh...do not take your eyes off him.’

‘Drake Theron, I know how to secure someone, now come on, let’s get you inside.’

‘No Doc. I got them. The wings. Get me to the car … we can go where we need to from there. We have to go. Now’

‘What car? Wings? Where?’

Doc looked at Drake and then at Coyle, then back at Drake.

‘We need to move. Help me up. I …’ He swooned and had to lie back down.

‘Steady Drake, come on.’ Doc helped him slowly to his feet and they made their way out of the gate.

As they left, Coyle renewed his efforts at escape and found he had little or no strength in any of his limbs. It was like the thought was there, the will was there, but the response was missing. It took all his strength and concentration to try and sit up and this only served to roll him slightly over onto his back.

Doc walked back through the gate and over to him.

‘It’s called Isidium-14. A lichen based muscle relaxant I helped develop in my clinical days. It really is quite a potent paralytic, entirely organic too.’ Doc whispered; the voice came from very close to his ear.

Coyle tried to look up at Doc, then stopped trying to move at all.

‘Good,’ said Doc. ‘Now relax, and I will get this over with a soon as possible. My friend says that I have to inject you again so you will be paralysed for a considerable length of time.’

Coyle watched droopy eyed and unable to move as the doctor injected him again, he felt nothing. Not a pinprick. The Doc then studied some written notes, frowned, read them again then earnestly said, ‘You will soil yourself, possibly on a number of occasions, over the next twelve hours. We will alert the Mudheads or the local media to your location. Or maybe both.’ He consulted his notes again, ‘Drake has yet to decide.’

Doc then removed a scalpel from his inside pocket.

‘I usually say, “Stay still” for subcutaneous facial surgeries, when the subjects are awake, but in this case …’

Coyle’s pupils narrowed, his breathing was quick and shallow.

Doc leaned over him, so his face entirely filled Coyle’s skewed field of vision. ‘Your forehead,’ Doc said, answering the unasked question, then brought the scalpel up to make the first incision.

‘Just one word. An odd one, but there you go.’

He made his cuts.

Coyle tried to blink blood from his eyes, then gave up and kept them as tightly closed as he could as the Doctor quickly, but neatly, carved a word onto Coyle’s forehead.

‘WOOF!’ it said. Exclamation mark and all.