Blood On Borrowed Wings: A Dark Fantasy Thriller (35 page)

Preparation is the only shortcut to achievement.

From Meadow to Mud

G. Jorges

Since leaving Doc, two weeks ago, this room had been my home. It was even worse than the quarters I had shared with him after my operation. On check-in the man at the seedy motel’s counter had greeted me with some surprise, probably because I was alone or maybe because I paid for the full two weeks in advance. He said they had an hourly rate and then asked if I wanted the Executive Suite.

This was it.

Peeling floral wallpaper that had once been bright shades of gaudy yellows and oranges now hung in listless discoloured swathes, bound by a thin layer of grease and neglect. There was a functional television set that needed a couple of thumps on its side before it would kick into life. The lamp on the night table flickered every now and then, though the surrounding walls and drab, moth eaten furnishings seemed to devour any light before it managed to fully invade the room. The bedding was threadbare and ancient and seemed to be degrading before my eyes.

I had been checking the news regularly, to see if there were any announcements about big events or pertinent political happenings that would give me some kind of direction. It was during a mid thump on the side of the television that I had heard something. I rushed to sit on my bed (there were no chairs in the room,) and saw it was Jackdaw, talking about his next fight. It was a common occurrence for Angelbrawlers to appear on live television, goading and blustering to each other in their pantomime way. The voice sounded familiar.

‘...next fight will be tomorrow, and I am sorry but it will be a private affair. This. Is. Personal.’ Jackdaw said theatrically. ‘He’ll be needing a DOCTOR of his own when I have finished with him.’ I had not been interested in his posturing until then. Doc? Had they got to him?

‘And might we ask who the lucky person is?’ The interviewer asked.

‘No, you may not Selene
 
but he knows who he is, and where it will be.’ Jackdaw looked into the camera, he grabbed it by the edge of its lens and pulled it towards him. His face filled the screen. ‘Dinosaur, come to Daddy. Come. To. Daddeeee!’ There was a cheer from a nearby crowd.

The interviewer then did her
 
bit to camera.

‘So, there you have it, another Lowlands exclusive. The fight roster at the weekend has changed, though all tickets are still valid. Questions remain though - who is this mystery man? Why is Jackdaw so riled? When will we...’

I turned it off.

I got the message.

It was clearly a trap, but if Doc’s safety was in question I had to go.

I checked and the story was shown, with a different interviewer asking the same questions, on another channel half an hour later. It was repeated on the late-night bulletin, on other channels. I watched the same open challenge over and over and felt a foreboding slide to settle in the pit of my stomach. The Arena would give me some answers, whether Doc was there or not. I had to go.

I lay on my bed and tried to get some sleep.

*

I did not know the time but knew the sun had not long come up. I stood and walked over to the window, pushed the curtain to one side and looked out at the morning. I had not slept well.

I was used to stress, to making the most of the time for rest, but not last night. Maybe it was because I had rested amply over the last few weeks, and despite the pain and stiffness, my body and limbs were in good shape, all things considered. Or maybe it was because I could not stop going through Jackdaw’s challenge or decide on the correct course of action.

I knew I had to go but was not sure of how this all tied together.

Doc’s assessment may have been right, maybe I was not ready for this physically, but mentally, I had no choice. I had to act now, today, this morning. Fly headlong into the maelstrom. I had two days, tops, before the ‘Launch’; whatever that was and this was my only lead.

I went over to my bag, took two painkillers and washed them down with bottled water, thought about it some, then took two more. I shrugged into my combat sleeve. The vest was black, tight and had small tessellated shapes that overlapped and moved with the contours of my frame and musculature. It looked like it was covered in scales that shone a dull silver if ruffled or displaced. It hugged the scar on my chest and served to act as a bracing support for my lower and upper back, the dull ache there lying quietly in wait to pounce, develop and skewer.

I dropped to the floor and started my morning exercises: chest presses using the bed as a cantilevered weight, sit-ups and the crippling shrugs. I tried to enjoy the distraction.

I suppose there comes a time in everyone’s life when they need to face up to a big truth, that they will never be the king shit of what they thought they would be. That life and time and choices have a way of limiting our paths and altering our futures. And worse is that the messenger for this crushing realisation is that secret voice in our heads that only we hear.

And worse still, it never lies.

Though we lie to ourselves that it does.

 
I pulled on my boots and checked my small knife was still sheathed there, grabbed my bow, bolts and club and fastened them to my belt. I stashed a small amount of credits in a pouch at my back along with a small torch, then discarded my worn clothes and bag into the sticky bin in the corner of the room.

I stopped with my hand on the doorknob and took a deep breath, closed my eyes and rested my forehead on the creaking wood. This would be my last moment of peace for a while. I savoured it: the quiet, the tension, the energy. I had to go the Angelbrawl Arena, where this all had started, I would get the answers I needed from there and by the end of the day, I would find peace again.

At least then the internal voice in my head would be silenced, one way or the other.

There is never complete separation; the journey is always part of the destination. In this way the entire world is linked.

Connections

H. Rowe

‘It’s time,’ Cowlin said through Governor Rose’s door.

Leonora joined him.

Rose swung the door open a minute later, surprising Cowlin who was in the middle of knocking loudly and impatiently, she emerged without greeting or apology.

‘I am glad we are travelling officially this time,’ said Leonora.

Rose nodded for Cowlin to go and fetch her luggage. ‘As am I, Leonora, it is far more comfortable and will spare us a flight with that ghastly crew again.’

‘They have already been booked out; I checked.’

‘Why on earth did you check, Leonora? You know how much I despised that last journey.’

‘I thought you said it was good to keep in touch with the electorate.’

‘Not
that
“in touch”.’

Cowlin emerged with two bags and a suit, pressed and hung in plastic.

‘Is everything ready?’ Rose asked.

He nodded. ‘The credits have been dropped for Vedett, the State Airship is set and everything is on schedule down in the Deadlands.’

‘Good,’ Rose said.

They walked the length of the first floor landing in silence, the plush carpet deadening the sounds of their footfalls as pictures of bygone Governors disinterestedly looked on.

‘Has security been stepped up down there?’ asked Leonora, as they neared the top of the stairs.

‘As requested,’ Cowlin said, ‘though it has not been without its problems.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning the guard is nervous, they are anxious about the unveiling.’

‘Unveiling? Now, let us call it what it really is.’

‘Governor?’

Rose’s shoes click clacked noisily as she descended the stairs. ‘I would rather think of it as a means to an end. A set-up. The beginning of my next campaign.’

At the bottom of the stairs Rose walked off to her study, waving a hand that meant she would follow them outside.

Leonora spoke to Cowlin. ‘You do not look happy, soldier.’

Cowlin said nothing, just carried the bags towards the airship, moored out towards the back of Primary House.

Above Primary House the sky was building levels of grey on black and the wind was starting to stir grass and smaller shrubs in the grounds. There was tension in the flag as it snapped and cracked. The string tethering it to the pole pinged every now and then as it fought to come free of its cleat.

‘Wait,’ said Leonora.

Cowlin stopped and closed his eyes before slowly turning to address his superior, who had followed him outside.

‘I know things have been … messy lately, but it will all be over in the next forty-eight hours at most, so the direct jeopardy to you and your men will soon be negated.’

Cowlin said nothing.

Leonora stared at him, the whoosh of the gas entering the Zeppelins’ cells paused as if to make way for his answer.

‘Well?’ said Leonora.

Cowlin said nothing.

‘My things are by the front door,’ Leonora said, then spun on her heels and quickly stomped back to Primary House.

Cowlin was not worried about his men’s safety. He was a professional soldier and a good one who had served his state from the earliest possible age. It was Drake that was giving him concern. Not the reputation or ferocity of the Vanguard, that was legend to any serving man. It was not an affinity or sympathy that he and some of his men were feeling. No, it was just one uncomfortable, fidgeting, nagging truth about what they were doing to Drake that he could not escape:
        

That could be me.

Cowlin unceremoniously threw the Governor’s bags and garments into the hold and returned to get Leonora’s luggage. Pulling his military issue, dark grey coat collar up about his ears, he looked at the unsettled sky then went to tell the First and Second Ladies that they should be leaving soon.

Maybe they could beat the storm.

The best time for retaliation is before they have landed the first blow.

Battle One, Battle All

Kallon Blockywcz

‘What about Beaugent?’

‘What about him?’

‘Do you think he will take us without quarrel or issue?’

‘Does not matter, my one-eyed friend, I am in the mood for both. Unless you want another tangle with the windshark who nearly had your rump on a plate.’

‘Medium rare.’

Croel laughed and went to collect his bow.

Mckeever collapsed his bow, clasped it to his belt then balled his long black trench coat up neatly and placed it on the library reception desk.

‘And what exactly do you think we will find?’

‘Something worth getting our teeth into.’ There was a flash of mischief back in Croel’s speech and mannerisms and Mckeever was not sure if he was glad to see it or not.

‘We have been used, Mac, and paid handsomely for the privilege, but now it is time to see who has been pulling the strings and why. I do not like where we have ended up in this one, not one bit.’

‘Vedett.’

‘Yes, Vedett. No doubt he has not shared as much information as he could with us - but his last move, dropping clumps off of that idiot.’

‘Coyle.’

‘That Mudhead idiot - must have been self-preservation on his part.’

‘And if he is offing people he works with, in such a demonstrative and visceral way …’

‘… then he is either trying to pull us into his mess or worse, finger us for it and sell us out to whoever it is we have been working for.’

‘You mean Rose?’

‘Yes, and her whole stinking government. It is election year, my friend, time for propaganda and mayhem, triple speak and duplicity.’

‘Preening and parading.’

‘And I love a parade, let’s go and crash one.’ Croel cracked his fingers, collapsed his bow and walked across the library floor. Dust motes shifted in the sun, drifted around like mesmerising snow to come to rest atop drifts of old. He stopped at the fiction shelf and looked down at Coyle’s head; it was perched directly over the letter ‘H’. He bent down to address Coyle.

‘I heard from one of your scummy friends that there is something big going down in the Deadlands today.’

Mckeever walked over, spoke to Croel through a gap in the shelving, ‘I would wager a windshark’s tooth that it is something to do with our Vanguard nemesis and that cellblock he had absconded from a few weeks back. I bet that’s why we had to clean it up.’

‘As you know, Mac, I am a betting man, but not a gambling one.’

Mckeever nodded then made his way to the stairs.
 

 
‘It is rare I lose.’ Croel followed Mckeever up the stairs, ready for his flight to the collection point. He entered the loft to see Mckeever climbing onto the sill, ready for take-off.

‘Medium rare,’ said Mckeever, who with one beat of his wings disappeared from the hole in the attic wall, leaving an unoccupied wedge of sky.

‘And just like that, with one beat … gone,’ said Croel who watched as Mckeever climbed. He stepped up onto the sill and paused before he left, looking back into the gloom, the positivity slowly slipping from his face. Then, without a word, turned and fell onto the morning air.

They made their way to their embarkation point and waiting Zeppelin crew.