Blood On Borrowed Wings: A Dark Fantasy Thriller

by Darren Stapleton

  The Governor sipped at her rum. The amber fluid felt unctuous on her lips and burned a trail of warmth across her tongue and palate.

  ‘That all depends Leo.’

  ‘That is a politician’s answer Governor, ever thought of running for office?’

  The Governor laughed and went over to put an arm around Leonora’s shoulder.

  ‘Yes, it will work. Nimbus will lap it up, I can use this as a catalyst to suggest what was a few years ago unthinkable.’

  ‘You mean endorse between the Lowlands and Edgelands.’

  ‘Bring the sky and earth together?’

  ‘Yes. But you have always opposed this. I am not sure the public will buy you changing your stance. That you would suggest easy flight for the masses seems preposterous. The winged elite, your key supporters, have always been against it.’

  ‘That’s where Drake comes in. Imagine what an ex Slayer’s attempt on my life will do. Whilst I am seen to be in the midst of trying to make the world a better place the Lowland scum will come flying in and prove exactly why that is such a bad idea.’

  ‘Are you sure he will get involved?’

  ‘He already is.’

  Leonora looked into her drink, ‘I do not think that will be enough to explain your u turn?’

  ‘Of course it will. Both you and I know the Nimbus population will love the soap opera along with anything that comes out of my mouth thereafter. Remember last time? Besides, I will only be endorsing the movement, as I said, Drake can crush it for us, before it even takes off, so to speak.’

  ‘Pardon me for my doubts Governor but...’

  ‘Leo he’s an ex Slayer, all military muscle and machismo mud. It will be easy manipulating him, almost cruel in fact.’

  ‘He is dangerous,’ said Leonora, her brow still creased.

  ‘Maybe, but he will play along. I know he will. He is bitter about the loss. The sacrifices. The deaths. Bethscape. There is hatred in there and that will blind him. He is a selfish loner with nothing to fight for, so let’s give him something. Then he will fall in line soon enough.’

  Leonora sighed and faintly shook her head.

  Governor Rose softened her tone. ‘Trust me on this Leo. Think of the public sympathy after another foiled attempt, the Bethscape hangover gone for good. Think of where this will put us with the voters. Me soaring in the popularity ratings and putting an end to all this talk about, about...outmoded travel.’

  Leonora still looked unconvinced.

  ‘I will be rid of the last bastion of the old guard. The white winged alliances will fall and any subsequent uprising would be toothless. Voiceless. Pointless.’

  ‘And Drake?’

  ‘His foiled attempt on my life will be the catalyst for the public opinion I need.’

  ‘The people will ask for division. Security.’

  ‘The very things that brought me to office, that make us thrive as a nation.’

  She clapped herself at the end of the sentence, smoothed at the pleat of her skirt and returned to her vigil at the window. She watched as her reflection disappeared, lost in the fog of her breath on the glass and took a final sip of rum.

  ‘But still...’ Leonora said, a knock on the door interrupting them.

  ‘Hush now.’ The Governor turned, set her glass down with a soft thud on the smooth damask and gently drew her cold, painted, manicured fingers across the immaculate linen as she walked across the room. It had the feel of soft cool skin. She nodded and opened the same internal door Leonora had entered, her booted feet clacked noisily on the marble tiles of the ornate meeting room floor as she left.

  Leonora went to pour herself another drink before inviting Vedett in, the only discernible sound, the clack of the internal door being locked from the other side.

  The dead hold no grudges.

  Hawkheart: A Valkyrie's Way

  B. Brodie

  CHAPTER 12

  ‘Take off your dress.’

  ‘What?’ I could not see Pan’s face but I could imagine the expression now plastered all over it.

  ‘I said, take off your dress.’

  ‘Oh, and you think this is the right time for that do you, soldier boy?’

  ‘Look I’ve paid, this is my credit we’re on.’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that.’

  I couldn’t tell her the plan. The dialogue and preamble had to sound real. I knew they would be listening. One piece of playacting or exaggeration and this would not work. It had to be as real as possible. There was no other way.

  ‘Pan, time’s going to pass however we spend it, might as well go out with a bang, with smiles on our faces. Date bait, remember?’

  Pan was quiet. She must have been weighing up what to do next or wondering if I was being truly serious. ‘I don’t know.’

  I lowered my voice in both pitch and volume. ‘It’s the only thing to do.’

  I’d risked being found out with that one, emphasising the word ‘only’ just enough to imply something unspoken to her.

  ‘But…’ then she stopped.

  Went quiet.

  I felt a tangible change in the atmosphere.

  She came to me and nervously placed a cool small hand upon my chest. I placed my hand on top of hers and guided my fingers up her slender forearm to her shoulders. I unhooked the two dainty straps and she dropped the dress with a ‘ssssh’ onto the floor. I felt her shake as she did it, not from the loss of warmth it had previously offered, but from the act of disrobing. I pulled the thin vest they had left me in, over my head and threw it into the far corner. She ran her fingers down my torso slowly and goosebumps flashed across my neck and arms. I pulled her down onto me, on the concrete slab that was the bed and traced my hands slowly down her delicate back, resting them at the base of her spine.

  We leaned in and kissed.

  It was passionless.

  She was obviously freezing and I had both ears and my entire attention on being alert to company, but we kissed anyway. I swung her round so she was underneath me, thereby obscuring any onlookers’ view and waited for them to intervene in some way, as I knew they would. If women had been left in charge of our interment, this plan would not work. They would use reason and logic and probably be aware it was all a show before her dress had even hit the floor. However, male guards would be salivating at the thought, at the sight of her naked body and at the promise of getting their hands on it. Though voyeurism would play a large part in the pleasure they got from their current job, I had just inadvertently offered them a glimpse of something they could have for themselves and then obscured it with my ugly hairy male frame.

  I imagined their frustration starting to mass.

  Pan knew what she was doing. She moaned and slid underneath me like she was in the throes of pleasure already, digging her nails into my back and raking small furrows here and there.

  Gasping.

  Moaning.

  She fumbled at my belt. ‘I want you inside me.’

  She was good.

  Shit, I believed her.

  Then I heard it, in the far corner, the almost imperceptible rumbling of a door gliding open. I made more noise to embolden their approach and snaked my right hand down Pan’s side until it rested on the floor beside the bed, I wrapped it up in the red dress. Pan’s warmth had already leeched from the material.

  I could feel her trembling against me.

  Her goosebumps.

  Her hot breath on my skin.

  The darkness was still total and I was sure that whoever had come in would be wearing night vision goggles or something similar for advantage.

  I kissed Pan’s ear and she giggled, acting again.

  Then I heard the sound of the faintest whisper between people.

  At least two of them.

  In the cell.

  I doubted there would be more, things like this did not work like that.

  I kept my attention entirely on Pan, aware they could see everything. I dragged her dress up from the floor after
twisting it firmly around my right hand. I rubbed it slowly across her naked flesh and brought it to rest across her erect nipples, again obscuring their view.

  The two men moved in unison.

  I shot my right foot out in a side-kick aiming for the first assailant’s groin, missed but caught him on his thigh, he stumbled back and I heard a grunt as he careened into the guard behind him and onto the floor.

  Pan screamed my name.

  I shoved myself off the bed and flashed the dress out wildly, like a whip, feeling resistance as it hit someone standing in the far corner of the room. I lunged at the space where I had felt it snag and tumbled into the second guard. As we collided I whipped the dress over his head and around his throat as he clawed at my face. I ignored him and wrenched my hands in opposite directions as hard as I could, like I was doing up the lace of a stubborn boot. I heard his larynx creak and collapse, a dry wheeze fought to escape his crushed throat.

  He fell, flailing, to the floor.

  A kick came from the opposite direction, up into my solar plexus, which knocked a gush of air from my lungs. I hit the cold concrete floor next to the guard who now lay there, asphyxiating.

  Pan screamed again. This time the shrill sound of desperation seemed to fill the concrete box, reverberating through to its hardcore soul. Her fear crashed in through my ears, an alarm telling me to get up and get it done.

  I was down on all fours and felt a well aimed kick land again, this time the force smashed into my ribs, lifted me momentarily off my knees, stole my wind, sending pain exploding up my left side and through my body. Stars started to slide across my vision.

  It gave me a bearing on his height and position.

  I rode the nausea.

  I twisted as I expected the next boot to be coming in and his foot glanced off my forearm, carrying his kick and momentum away from me, putting him off balance.

  I drove a fist into up into the warm fragile nest of his genitals.

  I shoved forward into his legs, toppling him backwards and heard the dull wet thud of his skull smacking onto the sharp, angled corner of the bed.

  Pan whimpered.

  ‘Pan. Move. To my voice. Now.’

  She threw herself off the bed, fumbling into me. ‘Stay where you are.’ I stooped using the sounds of his ragged breathing to locate the first guard I had floored. I felt the glass of his goggles and pulled them off his head and onto mine.

  The room swam into green light as I saw a third man push through the door towards us. I ducked and watched him sail over my shoulders and into Pan.

  They landed on the dead guard by the bed.

  They tangled, then the third guard linked a massive forearm around Pan’s throat and pulled her to her feet. He was behind her looking at me through his goggles and smiling.

  He squeezed one of her exposed breasts. Pan struggled.

  ‘Take one step towards me and I’ll snap her neck, ‘soldier boy’.

  ‘Pl… uh… uh…’ Pan tried to talk but was having the oxygen squeezed out of her.

  I edged closer.

  ‘I mean it. Back off.’ He pulled her even closer and though he was a big man, only the lenses of his glasses were visible, just above Pan’s hairline.

  I turned as if to leave then launched a thunderous uppercut that caught Pan square in the jaw. Her head snapped back and smashed her assailant across the bridge of his nose. He fell, loosening his grip. I think I heard the glass of one of his lenses crack too. Pan pitched forward, her head slumped, the life, pleading and screaming gone from her naked body and she hit the floor hard and unconscious. I hoped I had not broken her jaw. The man wheezing from his constricted windpipe made an attempt at a startled gasp. It stuck in his throat like a large truck wedged into a narrowing street.

  I grabbed the shirt of the man with the cracked lens and flat nose and pulled him back up towards me. He was unconscious too, his nose trying to spread its way across his face, mashed by the stubborn crown of Pan’s skull. I removed the club, the knife and the set of keys from his belt loop then carried Pan out of the cell and into the empty corridor beyond.

  I lay her down on the cold floor and went back into the room to secure it.

  I left with a crossbow, two more clubs, another knife.

  And a red dress.

  Women are like nature. All weathers. All temperatures. All rock, blood and air. Unfathomable in their ways and reason.

  The Blackwing Interviews

  Colonel Hundt

  CHAPTER 13

  ‘Tough night? You both look like shit.’ Vedett always spoke with confidence and an air of authority, so Croel and Mckeever believed him. ‘What happened to your eye?’

  ‘It’s been a tough job,’ Croel said. ‘First the three stooges needed to be dispatched, then Mr Do Right here, in the bag, shot, as specified with this.’ He kicked the harpoon gun with his foot. ‘Maybe you could have a word with the Governor about sorting the gun ban out?’

  ‘Mr Croel, guns and bombs nearly ended us. All of us. You will never see their likes again. It is the only thing everyone on Nimbus agrees on.’

  ‘I like my bow,’ Croel said, leering into Leonora. Leonora stepped backwards. Croel turned back to Vedett. ‘We’ve nubbed him, as requested and we’ve flown him here, personally, also as requested, so you can pay up and shut up.’

  Vedett pointed towards the table.

  Leonora stepped out of the way, the revulsion clear on her face.

  ‘Lay him out there.' Vedett grinned.

  Mckeever and Croel clumsily hefted the bag onto the table and began to unpack Newton.

  ‘Whilst you work maybe you should reconsider your tone. Think about the respect I should command in meetings such as this, at least because I hold the credits, your credits, for this very job or how I could wave as I watch you leave, then call in a few favours and watch you dissolve as you head past an Edgeland turret, and not blink an eye.’

  Mckeever looked at Croel.

  Croel sneered but said nothing.

  ‘Do you think you can complete phase two tomorrow? A simple pick up and drop off in the Deadland Swamp as agreed? Or does Daddy need to come and hold your hand for that one?’

  Croel’s eyes flashed at Vedett but Mckeever came between the two men, recognising Croel’s anger, he placed a big hand on his partner’s shoulder, looked in his eyes and gave a barely discernible shake of the head.

  Don’t it said.

  Croel fought to get his heavy breathing under control.

  ‘We know the plan,’ Croel hissed through his teeth.

  Vedett never stopped smiling. Not a flicker.

  Croel grunted then dumped Newton out onto the table.

  Vedett looked down at Newton. His wings had been nubbed cleanly.

  Good.

  But his face.

  Vedett’s smile faded. ‘And speaking of eyes…’

  Moral uncertainty makes us strive to be better people, moral certainty is a fallacy and is usually behind every terrorist, religious or societal act to ram home dogmatic, jingoistic ranting culminating in the obliteration of the bell curve populace to leave behind a median of sightless, soulless sycophants who know they are right.

  Party to The Party Line

  M. Greaves

  CHAPTER 14

  The Governor watched from her office window as the two Blackwings took to the air and left her home, circling up to be engulfed by the pre-dawn sky.

  Velena Rose’s residence teetered out over the edge of Nimbus City’s Edgelands rim: a dark hulking mass of stone and window, gable and granite foundation, supports propping the body of the structure up on elbows of concrete composition, a labyrinth of gun turrets, safety fences and security posts, lights and tunnels, lawns and secret, improbably enormous stores. Smoke tendrils slaked towards the sky as if, unimpressed with the cloud’s proximity, it was dragging fingers across the cotton wool baize to test its temperature and constitution. Inside a multitude of blustering staff busied themselves about their daily duties w
ith a passion and fervour that suggested their diligence would meet reward and procrastination punishment. Floors were swept, cutlery polished, cottons pressed and hung in an antechamber with wild Edgeland flowers so that some of their fragrant essences may seep into the boiled and starched linen, giving off the heady aromas of nature at its pampering best. Cooks worried over spices as maids attended corners, men toiled with fuel for fires and guards checked their armaments and boundaries with well-rehearsed routines that never deteriorated over time or frequency.

  In the centre of the main lawn, at the nexus of the sweep of the drive stood a lone statue of a Seraph, carved from quartz-embedded Lucite and illuminated by the up-glow of powerful arc sodium lights. He stood as a sentinel to the mansion, entirely opaque yet full of spangled glints and reflections. His wings were back, as if in the early stages of downbeat, ready for take-off, and his head was tilted up, looking into the world of sky and wind and deep blue nothing. Some said he was searching for foes and readying himself for defence and battle, others that he was merely taking in the sweep of the clouds and cobalt depths with a sense of wonder and awe, but none had ever put it better than an eight year old child of the electorate who had visited the mansion on one of its more accessible days when the Governor wanted to be seen rubbing shoulders with the mobs and masses.

  "Mum," he had said, "it looks like he’s stuck and wants to get home to the sky." The child had then started to cry at how sad the statue had looked until he and the mother had been removed for, the press were told, ‘personal reasons’. Of course they would be invited back to visit with the generous Governor Rose at a later date. Possibly when the press were not around.

  Rose’s publicity intermediary in charge of the event was later replaced and a memo circulated stating that shoulders, against which to rub, had to be more carefully chosen in the future.