Blood On Borrowed Wings: A Dark Fantasy Thriller

by Darren Stapleton

  I pulled up my damp shirt and spun round to show her their inked names embedded under my skin for eternity, the weight of guilt and responsibility that I would carry around with me until I joined them in the dirt.

  ‘Here’s loss,’ I said. ‘Here. Read it.’ The words sputtered out as I choked on something invisible that had risen out of the volcanic stew in my chest and lodged in my involuntarily constricting oesophagus.

  I revealed the dark and blue swirls of steadfast names tattooed across my back. My friends. But she ignored them. Stared straight past each one to settle her gaze at the high bulky angle of my shoulder blades where two dark, bony, protruding, calcified nubs were visible.

  ‘Fuck!’ she said and reached out a hand to touch where my wings used to be.

  Then someone kicked the door in.

  *

  Croel and Mckeever had held out as long as they could before reluctantly giving the signal for the drones to move in. Something was wrong. They watched them cross the street and hit the intercom. Heard them scream something at the night porter. Watched them remove their ram and smash, on the third attempt, through the glass door. Heard the night porter scream so loud that other nearby winged creatures were disturbed from their rooftop roosts. What they lacked in finesse they certainly made up for in brute force and directness.

  Croel and Mckeever did not talk or look away from the glass front door as they removed their long coats. Their sleeves, sleek in the night air, the apertures that allowed their wings lateral movement, creaked under the strain. Their wings were powerful, huge and flexed like uncoiling stowaways at their journey’s end.

  Mckeever cracked his knuckles.

  Croel licked his lips and patted the bolt notched on his crossbow.

  They were ready.

  *

  At the sound of the door giving way I pulled my shirt on, grabbed the bag of credits then shoved Pan back into her bedroom. The backs of her knees hit the wooden frame of the bed and she tumbled onto it with a grunt.

  I turned and looked around the kitchen for anything I could use.

  No knife block.

  No secateurs.

  No time travel machine set for the day before yesterday.

  Then I saw it. Something I could use.

  I heard them bundle down the narrow landing towards us. I crouched near the doorframe and waited, stayed low.

  Had to time it right.

  I swung the thick wooden chopping board into the side of the knee of the first assailant. I heard the knee give out with a cartoon pop and the man crumpled like a corrugated version of himself. I then brought the board up and felt two forceful thuds nearly knock it from my hands.

  A claw hammer fell to the floor.

  The bolts had not made it through either, they wouldn’t have if Sergeant Bleecker had fired them himself, but they had hit the thick wood powerfully enough to send me staggering, put me slightly off balance. Someone kicked me in the stomach, emptied my lungs and I reeled, stumbling backwards down the landing. I turned sideways, used my torsion to throw the board down the hall, like I was throwing a Frisbee. It clattered off the wall leaving a small furrow in the floral paper then smacked squarely into the second guy’s face. He joined the man with the obliterated knee, but, unlike him, he was not writhing or making a sound.

  I saw the third man taking aim even before the chopping board had hit the floor. I carried my momentum on and used it to hit the stained glass at the end of Pan’s corridor as hard as I could. I had no idea if it was reinforced and felt immediate relief give way to panic as the cold night air told me I was outside and rushing to meet the ground. I felt like an insect must in that moment when it realises it has crawled into stultifying amber; doomed and watching the world glaze over in slow motion. The shards of stained glass exploded and fragmented, wrapping me and the night in coloured neon stars, I could track every piece’s descent to the side-alley’s large plastic bins and cobbled floor.

  I fell with them.

  *

  ‘Did you hear that?’ said Mckeever.

  He turned to Croel who was no longer there.

  He looked over the edge of the roof to see Croel already in a dive and flying towards an alley at the side of the building.

  Mckeever followed.

  *

  I bounced noisily off two large, plastic bins and was up and running through the narrow alley before air had been allowed back into my winded body and the glass finished playing its xylophone lament. I had no idea which direction I was running in and blood started to run down my forehead as I moved. I glanced back and saw a black winged shape fill the alley’s void. He tucked his wings in, landed and started down the passage after me.

  I struggled to pull oxygen into my lungs and bundled my way towards the opposite end of the alley. Glass fell from my hair as I ran. He was getting closer and I heard somebody else shout something from behind him.

  There was more than one.

  They had made good use of the classic ‘Flush and Ambush’ manoeuvre which meant I was now dealing with professionals and the goons I had dealt with in Pan’s place were apparently just the warm up.

  Blackwings.

  I emerged from the alley like a musket ball tipped from a long, dark, slender barrel and fell, uselessly into the road. I heard another shout from the alley, amplified by the stone buildings either side, it sounded like the guttural scream of Lowland Cattle caught on razor mesh. I ran and hit the taxi door so hard I dented it, pulled it open and dropped onto the back seat.

  ‘Drive.’

  ‘Hey, you...’

  ‘DRIVE!’ I screamed.

  The engine had been idling. He gunned it into life, turned in his seat and put one arm up on the back of the passenger seat, to address me.

  ‘If you bleeds on the seats it’ll cost you extras. I just had her cleaned you know.’

  ‘Uh. Just drive. Fast. There’s credits here for you, look, but I need to be gone. Right now.’

  The driver tutted.

  ‘I don’t wanna know who you’s running from, but I do need sees credits.’

  I pulled a wad of notes from the bag. ‘There are two Blackwings coming down that alley, and if you don’t get us out of here, right now, these credits won’t be worth a Lowlands Marsh-Rat’s shit.’ I chucked them forward onto his dashboard. Now drive.’

  The driver pressed the accelerator to the floor, ‘Blackwings? Shits.’ The wheels fought for traction, bit and catapulted us forward in a myoclonic jerk.

  ‘Please, sit back, no bleeds on seat.’

  I sat back, happy our driver did not know that a Blackwing could outfly his contraption from a dead start in around three minutes, give or take, depending on wind and vehicle speed. I got my bearings and shouted directions from the rear seat.

  Two minutes forty left.

  Dark buildings flashed by in dirty neon blurs.

  ‘We’s going to the Lowland Interchange?’

  ‘Yeah. Going to lose them there.’

  ‘I fracking hates the interchange.’

  I reached into the bag and held up four thick wads of credits so they were visible in his rear view mirror.

  ‘New car set you back, what, ten thousand credits and change these days?’

  He went into a turn too fast, over steered, then worked the wheel to right the car, clipping a stack of cardboard lean-tos as he went by. I hoped nobody was in it.

  ‘Twelves and change.’

  ‘Well here’s fifteen if you do exactly as I say.’

  ‘I listens real good for sixteen. Real good. Drives good too.’

  The wheels screeched their protest as he cornered again. The credits I had thrown at his dashboard slid off and he caught them adroitly in his left hand as he fought to control the oversteer with his right.

  ‘Nearly lost it,’ he said and I had no idea if he was talking about the control of his taxi or the credits.

  Bolts protruded from the interchange sign where teenagers had sharpened their shooting skills an
d taken the edge off another night of Lowland boredom. The sign slipped by and off into the dark night as we plunged down into the array of concrete struts and wide pilasters, flyovers and bypasses, treacle black roads and causeways. The white lines were faded, only hinting at lane location and direction. Luckily my driver knew where he was going.

  So did I.

  One and a half minutes, maybe less.

  I looked out of the rear window and saw two black shapes climbing into the night sky.

  ‘Faster,’ I said.

  And I prepared as we careened on.

  The arteries took us deeper into the heart of the interchange, roads criss-crossed and turned in gigantic arcs and tight, coiled loops to take people or commerce off into the deepest darkest corners of the Lowlands provinces. Not that they would be in use at this early hour of the morning. Overpasses allowed the occasional glimpse of sky as we slid beneath the trusses and tunnels of interconnected concrete. I thought the pillars stood like giant dominoes, waiting for the push of a godlike finger, to send the whole confusing ugly mass crashing to the ground.

  I saw the Blackwings, first one, then both, pass over the highest flyover directly above us, I had to crane back to stare through the rear meshed windscreen and almost missed them.

  They were quicker than I had thought.

  Then I remembered.

  ‘Get ready. I need you to slow right down when I say.’

  ‘Absolutelys.’

  ‘Wait.’ I kept my stare tracking where they would emerge from the obscurity of the next flyover, there they were. I looked ahead and saw what I needed. We had just made it. I closed my eyes. Took a deep breath.

  ‘Now slow down.’

  The driver eased off the accelerator, the car’s high pitched complaining whine diminished to a guttural snarl.

  I shucked out of my coat as the cab rolled into the tunnel.

  ‘Slow right down and do exactly as I say.’

  The taxi drove slowly on.

  *

  ‘It must have stopped,’ Mckeever shouted into the wind. ‘It hasn’t come out from the...’

  ‘There,’ pointed Croel. They looked down as the taxi emerged from the tunnel looking like a winged bird, with its rear door flapping open and Drake tumbling from the back seat out onto the rolling concrete. His coat billowed and twisted round him as he landed.

  Mckeever was already swooping down before Croel could warn him about the weapon he had glimpsed, pressed into Drake’s side. Croel saw that Drake had favoured his right side when he landed and rolled and had come up clumsily, clutching something close to him as he sprinted back into the darkness of the tunnel. Croel angled his head sideways; his shoulders followed as he left the thermals of the heated concrete and swooped after Mckeever, shouting for him to slow down as he went.

  Mckeever must have compensated for his loss of sight with a slightly greater sense of danger. He circled low before turning back up into the sky and alighting on the lip of the tunnel, looking down at the road like a cat waiting for a mouse to emerge from a cartoon mouse-hole.

  Croel arrived seconds later, made a silent signal for Mckeever to come over and he spoke at a whisper.

  ‘You fly to the other end of this gutter-pipe and when you get there, we’ll both drop and move in from our respective ends, a pincer, flush him out one way of the other, like the Slayer turd he is.’

  Mckeever nodded.

  ‘We’ll be lit up like the Angelbrawl Arena when we enter the tunnel, silhouettes and shadows are not our friends, never have been from the sky. He’ll have dark on his side, and his eyes will have adjusted. He’s also carrying a weapon, saw something in his right hand, so take care, you’ve only got one left to lose.’ Croel pointed to his eye.

  Mckeever shook his head then ran along the roof of the tunnel before flapping his wings and flying to the other end. It took him fifteen or so seconds to get there. Once in place, Croel held his hand up and pointed to the overpass.

  Mckeever did the same.

  Croel made his hand into a fist, punched towards the floor then fell onto the road below and started to run into the tunnel screaming and shouting, diving for cover behind the first service pillar and ledge he could find.

  He could hear Mckeever doing the same.

  Their bellowing voices had seemed to move into the tunnel, occupy it like pining ghosts that were lingering and refusing to leave. The echo and reverberation was astounding, Croel felt it in the cavity of his chest and the sharp granite of his teeth. He waited until the ringing had faded before speaking.

  Only his first word caught in his throat.

  Someone was behind this first pillar with him. Their breathing was contained and controlled but he could hear it nevertheless, off just a few feet to his left. Shallow and low.

  He took a few very light steps away and was about to aim a crashing right hook onto the top of Drake’s head when it all fell into place.

  Drake would not have hidden somewhere so obvious.

  Made his escape so blatant.

  Fuck.

  ‘I hate Slayers,’ whispered Croel.

  ‘Croel?’

  The name echoed along the tunnel walls and sounded like a dull orchestra tuning up.

  The quarry waited until the noise had completely stopped before speaking,

  ‘Please not hurts me. Please,’ it said, ‘I have credits.’

  *

  As the cab cruised along in neutral, I was impressed with the physical speed of the driver. He was quicker than I could have hoped for and he was even pleased with the coat I’d thrust at him as he wriggled through the gap between the two front seats to sit in the back. He pulled it on quickly as we swapped places. Seems he dressed how he drove.

  I asked him to wait before he left, making sure we were going slow enough so he didn’t break any limbs, or give away his unprofessional landing too badly. I also had to be in the right place so they could see it all play out from overhead.

  ‘Jump when I say, and leave the door open.’

  Despite his uncertainty and worry about who was chasing me his eyes were bright and alive as he leapt from the cab.

  I wondered how much longer they would stay that way.

  I accelerated back to my place.

  *

  Stones crunched under tyres as the shush of the rain added whispered applause to my arrival home. Neon tubes above brooding shop windows emitted low hums, and the sheen of water amplified their glow, giving the street and the ripples of fat raindrops an otherworldly lustre, where things looked clean and promising and fresh.

  Nothing like the real Lowlands slums at all.

  My place was squat and hunkered between two taller buildings. Shimmering grey stone, doused in the deluge, caught the artificial glow and it gave the building a dreamlike feel, like it might disappear if I left the cab and tried to approach.

  There was no point hiding the car. The Blackwings either knew where I lived or didn’t, so time spent moving it and running home would be time better spent on more pressing matters. I grabbed the credits, climbed out, welcomed the cool splash of rain on my face and stopped.

  Turned my face to the sky and closed my eyes.

  The rain slid over my hot skin and gave me relief; it tugged and loosened at the coagulated blood on my forehead, made my tired muscles even more stiff and sore. The aches and the stresses of the previous few days weighed heavier and I allowed the water, the sensation, everything, to wash over me. It brought a sharp- edged respite that was both cloying and yet cathartic. It felt natural, like some base part of myself was being satisfied. With every raindrop, I felt like I weighed more and more, like my feet were roots taking hold in the cracks of the pavement.

  The platitudes about war, and service and honour had never seemed more obscure. I craved a stop, a haven from all noise, pain, lights, thoughts and motion; strange that I found it on the miasmic greys and blacks of the familiar yet entirely unremarkable causeway outside my own front door.

  I opened my e
yes, looked furtively left and right, then went inside.

  From love to loved;

  The saddest added ‘d’.

  Past tense,

  Future Misery.

  Suspenses in Tenses (excerpt): Old Lowlands Love Poem

  H. Holmes

  CHAPTER 37

  It was morning now and I needed food and rest.

  The brief respite I had snatched at Pan’s had only ever been fleeting, and every second I had spent there had been backlit by the burning fires of her betrayal and the eventuality that they, whoever they were, would be coming for me. And I had not been disappointed. But Blackwings? I had not expected or dealt with them since Bethscape Field, and whoever had hired them, assuming it was not some personal vendetta of the Blackwings themselves, must have some serious clout and credits.

  I realised I would have to save my questions and soul searching for later. I had to grab some essentials, set the trap and get out. I could not linger, that would be playing into their hands. It was a one bedroom apartment, I could be out quickly without having to waste time moving from room to room.

  I needed to change my clothes to make it less easy for them to track me and to make it easier for me to get a decent room later. I removed my shirt, wet it in the bathroom and caught sight of myself in the mirror and surveyed the damage. Bruises were already beginning to darken along the ridges of my ribs, the nubs where my wings had been were red and tender, probably from my landing in the alley. My thigh had a flat dark patch of yellowing purple where the needle had obviously penetrated to the muscle and my eyes were nothing but two dark, rescinding circles, retreating into a sleep deprived and under-nourished skull. I saw urgency there too, and purpose.