Blaze of Glory

by C. J. Strange

  “DIESEL!”

  In a fantastic explosion of artificial light and a deafening electrical thunderclap, the rifle goes off. Alfie’s body jerks with the extreme voltage and is hurled sideways into the wall, where he crumples weakly against the stone in a pyre of his own pain.

  I must be mad, because I’ve already launched myself at our ally-turned-assailant before Alfie’s body hits the ground. All promise of nonviolence eradicated from my mind at seeing my brigade mate attacked, I seize the rifle between both hands, fully anticipating the force of the blast as I make my one frenzied, fatalistic attempt at disarming him.

  White light blinds me, knocking me temporarily out of my own reality.

  By the time I come around, I too am smarting from the shock. Up is down, wrong is right, and I’m vaguely aware that my wrists are being drawn together at the small of my back.

  I can barely breathe through the pain, coupled with the exhaustion, and my body threatens to give out under me. Before I regretfully allow it, I jerk my chin up, staring defiantly into the face of a man I once considered a trusted comrade, and now little more than a traitor.

  Perhaps it’s how stunned I still am from the electromagnetic discharge. Or perhaps it’s just the way the shadows move across his face, and the heat causes everything to ripple and streak.

  But for a split second, I swear there’s a different emotion in his eyes as they cuff me, as my body comes close to giving in.

  I swear, just for a second, I see remorse.

  “Stay strong in there,” I also swear I hear, despite not seeing his lips move. Or perhaps they do. Everything is a blur, a haze, a candle whose flame is slowly starting to die. “All right?”

  I will, Gav, is my silent response, as my fading thoughts journey instead to my brigade. My boys.

  I know they’ll come after me. And I know they’ll come after him.

  Don’t let them find you out there. ‘Cause I know they’ll find you.

  My lads won’t let me die in the dark…

  26 Rhys' Dark Decision

  Well, that certainly was a spectacular cluster-fuck, if ever I’ve seen one.

  Young master Oliver is waiting for us at the rendezvous point by the time Duncan and I arrive, drained of our energy and barely in one piece. While it’s not exactly dignified how we may have traveled from the Palace of Westminster to our secluded and secured meeting locale, I have no shame. The Scotsman’s shoulder can be a rather comfortable spot to snuggle into when one is tired.

  It’s fun to be a damsel for a day.

  “Well,” I declare, the first to speak. Regardless of how tired I am, I clap my hands together in revels. “That was quite the splendid showdown, now, wasn’t it?”

  Duncan collapses to his knees on the banks of the Thames, motioning for us both to move deeper beneath the cover of the bridge. He’s awfully attractive when he’s this unraveled, I must confess.

  “What happened?” Oliver is sputtering, falling all over his longtime friend. “Is everything okay? It was Gav—we were right, Rhys!”

  A flimsy smirk settles itself neatly between my lips.

  “Of course we were right, my dear,” I answer. My voice, always graceful, has taken on a rather uncharacteristic and unwelcome raspy quality. “You will one day learn that I am rarely ever wrong, and learn to use that to your advantage.”

  “He’s a cop.” Oliver shudders, curling up against Duncan’s comically larger frame. “New Sovereign Yard.”

  “Feckin’ bastart fascist scum,” Duncan hisses under his breath, in an accent so thick Oliver and I exchange glances in our mutual attempt to understand it. It tends to happen, on occasion.

  A cool but calming silence overcomes us, as we perch on the edge of the river awaiting our fourth and fifth. I become absorbed in my cuticles. They’re less agonizing than the prospect of the rest of our brigade not on their way to meet us.

  Or the impending realization I keep procrastinating that I’m actually beginning to grow rather fond of these folk, and their demise would damage me beyond which I wonder how far I can be repaired.

  It’s about six minutes later when the Scotsman finally raises his head.

  “Too long,” he mutters to himself, and with a grunt, he hauls himself to his feet. Ah, apparently the extent of our trust of one another knows some boundaries. Or at least, this may be the appropriate time to begin to panic.

  I swap another pointed look with our smallest, as Duncan zips away like only he can. The quiet, wily young thing is chewing on both thumbnails at once, a feat I never imagine possible ’til now.

  I’ve barely found a dryish place where I’m able to settle down beside him in a crouch, when Duncan is making himself known again, and with a great amount more zest and zeal than the last time we saw him.

  “The Old Bill—coppers! They’re everywhere!”

  “What?” Oliver is on his feet before I can process the information that was delivered only seconds before. “Did you find Penny, or Alfie? Did you see them anywhere!?”

  Duncan is panting, gasping, frothing at the mouth like some sort of awful, rabid Alsatian. He whirls on me, spitting and seething, and when he peers at me he’s doing so through what appears to be the world’s most intense, severe migraine.

  A little too much Magick a little too fast, perhaps. It really is a libation in and of itself.

  “Nah—” Duncan manages to vocalize, which takes considerable effort. He thrusts a trembling finger in my general vicinity. “You—luck—now!”

  I’m indignant. “I beg your pardon?” I demand, but he only re-stresses his insistence.

  “You—me—now!”

  “Now, see here—” I begin to protest, but when one goes toe-to-toe with a berserker Scot who’s lost the lady of his life, one loses any pot they may previously have had to piss in. I’m hitched up and over his shoulder in a heartbeat, and then we’re off: rushing through the dampened streets, around corners and up and down stairs, at a speed that makes it impossible for me to comprehend any of my surroundings. I have no idea how someone with the brain of a Scotsman manages it.

  I’m choking for air by the time he lets me go, dumping me as gently as he can as he barrels shoulder-first into the bank of the river.

  “I’ll have you know,” I mutter as I try to recover my bearings, “while I am aware as an Anomaly I technically have no rights, I do not appreciate being wielded like a bloody lucky rabbit’s foot!”

  But Duncan has no time for my musings. And, upon seeing his reaction, neither does Oliver.

  “Coppers—!” he coughs up, both fists balled up in his eye sockets as he grits his teeth against the pain. “EMTs—and press, everywhere!”

  Oliver turns to me, as earnest and enthusiastic as ever, but I’m currently forming my own strong opinions about the matter at hand. Especially given how much my own sense of willpower is starting to fade. And especially given what just came tumbling out of Duncan’s mouth.

  “Press?” I don’t care if it’s obvious I’m sweating. “If the press are crawling around the Palace, I’m afraid you will both have to count me out.”

  The two of them snap their heads up to stare at me in disbelief. As if what I just said wasn’t entirely reasonable.

  “Rhys, two of our brigade are still in there somewhere,” Oliver tries to reason with me. A quaint decision on his part. “We have to go back for them! And we need your luck—”

  “My luck has run out,” is my monotonous response. “I have my limits. And when it comes to this area of town, you are all on your own.”

  Oliver’s shaking his head as Duncan shakes him off, barely even conscious anymore. It may not be the time to mention it, but as a brigade, we could certainly take a leaf out of Diesel’s book when it comes to disciplining ourselves Magickally.

  “They’re your brigade!” he snaps at me. And while his words ring true, and a pit of guilt does risk developing somewhere deep within me, a higher calling retains its dominance.

  A calling to survive, t
hrough to the end. And to see my father pay dearly for everything he’s done.

  And not just in sterling.

  I open my mouth to deny him for a proverbial third time, but Duncan’s hoarse, ragged voice interrupts our argument. To both of our surprise, when we turn our heads, he’s got his mobile phone pressed against his face.

  “Boss, aye, it’s Doherty.”

  He’s dragging himself up, his muscles shaking with the weight they have to bear. One knee falters, and he hits the dirt hard on it.

  “Aye, me! Aye. Listen—no—no, I’ve nae been compromised,” he’s forcing out. “I need back-up. Nay, not an extraction—I need you ta send in back-up, and I need you ta send it in NOW!”

  Duncan has been pushed beyond his breaking point, the point of no return. Something inside of him has snapped. Something he saw while we were out there by the Palace caused it to snap.

  I have no idea what it was, but from what I know of Duncan, whatever it was, it must have been tragic to detonate him like this. If it weren’t for the phone call that has both Oliver and my jaws resting on the ground, I would be prodding and poking him for the answer.

  “I’VE NAE BECOME COMPROMISED!” he repeats, his accent thickening with the strain of it. The noise that wrenches itself from his throat as he launches the phone into the water is barely human, and as we watch the piece of technology skitter across the surface before disappearing, we’re both wondering the exact same question.

  Oliver is the one to finally dare speak it aloud, his words merely a peak above an utterance.

  “Who was that?” his tiny voice whispers, as Duncan sinks defeated to his knees on the banks of the Thames. “Duncan—who are you?”

  “Oh my.”

  I shake my head as I watch the two of them. While it may not be appropriate, a sense of overwhelming ironic amusement is rearing its ugly head from within layer upon layer of negative emotions I’m doing everything I can not to feel.

  “My, my, my goodness. And here I was thinking I had a secret worth keeping.”

  Penny’s next book will be announced in CJ’s Brigade:

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/cjsbrigade/

  Gavin, Izzey, and other new characters will appear in his newest reverse harem series:

  Games of Genus

  The Baker Street Archives #1

  About the Author

  CIARÁN (n) [KEER-ehn] a funny little British bloke; you probably met him at a con one time

  MUCH TO HIS AMUSEMENT, he’s been compared in the past to David Bowie, Tony Stark, Joan Jett, Ramona Flowers, Gerard Way, and Tank Girl – but I.R.L., we all know him as Ciarán James Strange, an eccentric and powerful LGBTQ+ artist who blends pop sensibilities, dynamic rock guitars, and high-energy live shows into his own brand of geeky pop-punk. At seventeen, he left his family, friends, and little English fishing village behind in order to chase his dreams to Vancouver, BC, where he now resides indulging in his passion for many different facets of performance including music, writing, voice-acting, acting, vlogging, and pro-wrestling.

  ciaranstrange.com