Blood On Borrowed Wings: A Dark Fantasy Thriller

by Darren Stapleton

Bleecker closed the buff-coloured file containing my statement and turned to look out of his window on the third floor of his block. There were four floors between the sub-basement morgue and us, but I was still aware of Newt, laid out, cold, on a metal table, far beneath us.

  I looked around Bleecker’s office. On his desk an antique hourglass poured a thousand tiny iridescent grains through an exact aperture denoting my ever-diminishing life. Heavy tomes stood proud on Bleecker’s substantial shelves, volumes on war and aphorisms, law and poetry, police procedure and meditating. Incongruous at first, art juxtaposed with science and method, creative wants nestled in amidst the functional and brutal. But that was Bleecker, a principled man sometimes cripplingly insightful and intelligent, well educated, able to immerse himself in the political meritocracy of the Edgelands’ upper echelons without ever seeming jaded by it. And equally having an amazing propensity to not only disseminate violence in battle but enjoy doing so.

  He had started his career as a journalist and cameraman, making and filming propaganda and films for training and analysis, but quickly took to fighting when a routine sortie had gone horribly off track, winning the Vanguard Arrow for bravery beyond the call of duty and a change in his career direction. After the mud, blood and death of the Bethscape trials, he had taken on the government implying their involvement in the massacre. He wanted them to admit, at least, that they were somehow culpable in omitting information, in not sharing what they knew of the insurgents or Blackwings operating in that area. The trial had spanned more years than I could remember and had culminated in nothing more than a barrage of vapid press releases by the government and a ‘reallocation’ of Bleecker to a role better suited to his new found administrative skills, or at least that’s what the banner headlines had said. I had not followed the case.

  ‘How long have you been flying this desk?’ I asked. I tapped the thickset wood with my knuckles.

  ‘Too long,’ he said, still looking out of the window.

  I had to make the effort here; I had shunned him since Bethscape Field, and had continued to do so, even today, after he had all but composed my statement to help contain any potential assault charge and assured me that it would take some time to locate in his in-tray, after he had finished with it.

  ‘Was it worth it? The trial?’

  He turned, his cheeks looked flushed.

  ‘Drake, your brother and three other people, good people have been slaughtered and you stand in my office puking out small talk? Boy, you really have changed.’

  I looked at him coldly.

  ‘You’re bang in the middle of this shit-pile too, unless I’m very much mistaken.’

  ‘I’m handling it,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, and how is that going for you, Slayer?’

  ‘I’m not a...’

  ‘Cram it, Drake. Save it for the whining women who like cow eyes and hard luck stories.’

  I flinched a little, wondering if he knew about Pan. His eyes bored into me.

  ‘You and Newton were two of the finest Slayers I have ever served with. Full stop. And now your brother is gone and you are flapping around like some beached mudflat fish the wrong side of the tide.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘You and I know this is all part of the same mess, has to be, just like I know what your next move is going to be.’ He placed his two sledgehammer hands, fingers splayed, on the thick varnished wood and lowered his voice to a whisper: ‘So ask for my help and quit bundle fucking around.’

  I looked past him and out of the window.

  ‘Drake, do you know why you were set up at the Angelbrawl?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then this has got to be related, hasn’t it?’

  ‘But if they were setting me up to frame me for killing err...for Newt’s death, why make sure I am somewhere so visible, so high profile?’

  ‘Maybe they wanted you out of the way.’

  ‘What so I did not swoop in and save him? Like a brother should?’

  ‘Come on Drake, don’t be so hard on yourself.’

  ‘Sorry for not having all the answers Bleecker, OK.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant. Now ask, Drake.’

  I shoved myself up from his desk, stood, knocking over my chair and turned to leave.

  ‘OK, so that's how it’s going to be? Go on Drake, leave.’

  I reached for the door handle.

  ‘Again.’

  I paused, facing the door.

  He got it. He knew it all.

  Understood what Newt and I had been through.

  Our father’s death in service, our mother’s suicide, our fights and competitive demonization of each other, the bloodshed, the unspoken love and bond of brothers. Me walking away from it all, from them all, the child I had murdered, the wings I had thrown away. Not because we had overtly spoken of it, but more than that, he had witnessed it, in training, in barracks, in transit, flight and battle. In the aftermath of loss and introspection.

  Bleecker was not our replacement guardian, had never tried to be, but he had served with our father in the Lowland Flat wars, and in doing so knew who we were and where we had come from, probably more than we cared for him to know. He was harder on us in basic training, took every chance he could to set us against each other in flying, in competition or in fights, not because it was good sport or a favour for an old friend. No. It was because we hit each other hardest of all, knew the weak spots and worked them, he saw us at our worst when we fought, and, in doing so, got the best out of us.

  Two ragged arsed chips off the same block, swearing too much, not caring enough and, above all things, looking out for the Vanguard, our partners, our family.

  Our brothers.

  This was Bleecker’s way of saying he had some relevant information but that he was unsure if he should share it. I was supposed to ask for his help, to involve him, to fall straight back into it. I thought he knew me better than that.

  Then Bleecker was beside me, his huge flat palm pressed solidly on the door.

  ‘Drake, can’t you see this is your chance to make amends, to find your way back?’

  I looked into his eyes with nothing. No expression, no recognition, no emotion. I checked it all and just wanted to go.

  ‘Now ask,’ he said.

  I kept staring.

  He took his hand away from the door.

  I left.

  You will never see death coming, but always know when it has arrived.

  Windsharks: A Study of Death in Motion

  A. Harris

  CHAPTER 50

  ‘So Vedett still hasn’t called?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But we’re going to go down anyway?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘Ifs and buts don’t build huts.’

  Mckeever shook his head.

  ‘Look, I know we can handle ourselves, Croel, but Vedett is someone we cannot trust. He is as mean as we are and probably more resourceful. Connected. I heard he runs with the Deluvian Plainsmen.’

  ‘Yeah? And I heard he likes fucking boys and painting by numbers.’

  Mckeever finished eating the charred remains of a dead animal off a stick, and threw the stick and carcass out of an opening in the library roof. The undergrowth moved as an unseen animal scurried to pick it clean.

  ‘I am tired of being one step behind everyone. One wing beat away from where we really want to be.’

  Mckeever nodded.

  ‘You could leave your bandages off too, allow the wind into the socket. Dry it out.’

  ‘It’s itching like a pimp’s palm at midnight.’

  ‘Well, let’s go then.’

  Mckeever looped the bandage from around his head and discarded it. Croel walked over to inspect the damage. He hissed in sharply through his teeth.

  ‘Pain?’

  ‘Six, though it can screech up to an eight when the throbbing starts.’

  ‘What about the other eye?’

&nbs
p; ‘Sore. Maybe through overcompensating.’

  ‘It could just be a short trip. Maybe find out what exactly is in play here. If nothing else, it will be more practice for you.’

  Mckeever frowned and deftly took off into the dusk sky. His shadow was long and painted the undergrowth below with swathes of grey and black, Croel’s shadow followed a distance behind. Mckeever flew into the wind, enjoying the wind rush, the flapping of his feathers, the freedom and the sensations. He left the flats of the Edgelands and hung high over the drop off, listening as his socket whistled a hollow note when the angle of his head was just right. Croel must have heard it as he was shouting something and pointing, but Mckeever could not hear a thing in the maelstrom of noise. He turned a tight arc, hovered in the updraft and waited for Croel to catch up. He absently dabbed his sleeve at the rim of his eye and brought it away to see it was covered with a dark brown viscous fluid. He started to think that maybe he should head home and wondered if that’s what Croel was shouting. The gap between them had closed considerably. Croel was still shouting and flying fast towards him.

  Too fast.

  Mckeever looked down at the darkening glop on his sleeve and then back at Croel who was looking horrified at something directly over Mckeever’s shoulder.

  Croel shouting and panicked.

  Blood on the wind.

  Dead air.

  Mckeever realised what was wrong.

  He instinctively plunged, using the wind at his side to spin him quickly down and away. The windshark passed silently overhead and was already turning to angle at him from above even as Mckeever tried to gather his thoughts and keep his struggling, booming heart inside his chest.

  The windshark was grey and gargantuan, its scales glistening in the orange glow of the dying day. It looked like Mercury caught in the fire of the sun, totally liquid and fluid yet somehow bound together by a supernatural force that gravity had nothing to do with. And it was fast, and so quiet. Mckeever’s head filled with nothing, he felt as if every thought or conceivable notion had rolled along his severed optic nerve and fallen out of his eye socket to the distant Lowlands below, like petrified stones.

  That was when Croel hit it from the side. He flew in, brought his wings out to their full span and delivered a front kick right on the side of the windshark’s head, just below the jaw. It pitched and seemed caught in two minds, whether to direct its attention at the bleeding quarry it had so narrowly missed or the recent assailant who had ricocheted off and dove backwards towards the Edgelands’ scrub. The Windshark stopped spinning and whipped its huge tail into a sharp turn, angling like a torpedo at Croel. Croel beat his wings, tipped his head forward and narrowed his wings into sharp points with an apex so angular he looked hawk-like in his descent. The windshark was gaining fast. Croel brought his hands up into fists, his upper body curled and tightened into the foetal position, his legs together and pointed backwards, aerodynamically as close to a cannonball as a Blackwing could get. He knew he would be safe if he could make it to the tilting undergrowth of the Edgelands’ edge.

  Ifs and buts don’t build huts.

  He had to make it.

  The windshark began to open its jaws. Teeth at acute, obtuse and perpendicular angles seemed to jostle for space in its mouth. Croel dare not risk a look over his shoulder and focused everything into his forward and downward momentum.

  Had he looked he would have seen the waiting pinks and crimsons of a wind-dried throat set wide and deep into the Windshark’s missile face.

  Mckeever dropped his first arrow, failing to ratchet it into the crossbow’s groove as he struggled in the wind, flying hard to try and keep up. He dropped the second bolt into place but pulled the trigger too early. He watched it sail into the airspace the windshark had occupied a moment before then disappear into the wind.

  Croel was almost at the Edge, approaching far too quickly but willing to take his chances on a crash landing rather than disappear into the quick spreading gullet of his pursuer. And even in such a dramatic dive, Croel was sure he could feel the hot, rotting breath of the windshark on the back of his neck. That’s when he knew he would not make it. He cursed Mckeever being blindsided, cursed Vedett and all the little twists and schemes they had been part of and spat a volley of expletives at the onrushing ground that was still too far away. He gave up and closed his eyes waiting for the inevitable.

  Mckeever brought the loaded bow up. He wished he was Croel. Croel who could factor in wind velocity, trajectory, bow tension and quarry speed instinctively. He wished he had not tried to fly alongside the windshark, as a sideways shot was infinitely more difficult. But more than anything, he wished he had stayed at the Library and kept his bandages on. He looked along the line of the bolt with his good eye and squinted the empty socket closed through habit. He inhaled and felt a moment of calm. The wind dropped, the light took on a golden glow painting the scene in surreal and anachronistic beauty. Mckeever felt total tranquillity and peace descend.

  He exhaled and let the bolt fly.

  The arrow punched deeply into the windshark just between its right eye and its gill. It snapped its head back in a jerk as if an invisible uppercut and been delivered and careened off to its left into the sun. Mckeever watched Croel hit the foliage at speed and crumple into a shower of leaves and branches. He flew down and landed as Croel was picking himself up and pulling dead leaves and twigs from his feathers. Croel was glaring back at him.

  ‘I hit it. I…’ started Mckeever.

  ‘Do not say a word,’ said Croel. ‘Do not say a fucking word.’

  Mckeever thrust his hands in his pockets and in silence, they slowly made their way back to the library.

  They walked.

  We are the frenzied throes of battle,

  The cold silence of the tomb.

  The potency of death’s rattle,

  The heart beat in the womb.

  We must each defend our castle;

  We must each give up our room.

  Vanguard - The First Slayer Fallen

  Magglius Pyke

  CHAPTER 51

  The days running up to the funeral were a blur of paperwork, introspection, arrangements, evasive manoeuvres and more paperwork. I kept changing the places I stayed in every night, sometimes checking in and out on the same day. I paid with credits. I slept. I left. I arranged, I varied, I was unpredictable and inconsistently late, and twice, had cancelled as I had not been satisfied that the venue was safe.

  I kept moving.

  The day before the funeral I retrieved my bag from its hiding place beneath the eight steps at the rear of my apartment building where I had stowed it before I had climbed up into my helpful neighbour’s apartment. That was the closest I had been to my place, my old life, since Newt.

  I varied routines, planned and let the military take care of the formalities associated with a Slayer passing on. My brother’s modest estate could burn with him for all I cared. I had no right to it. No one did.

  In the quieter times, in the faceless rooms on shapeless mattresses, I lay and tried to piece together some form of eulogy for him. It was custom at Slayer funerals for a family member to lead the service, along with a brother in arms. I ticked both boxes.

  I did not want it to speak to the Mudhead masses, or the Slayer Vanguard or media. Nor did I want it to be sentimental or mawkishly familial, droning on about childhood memories and about the time when blah, blah, blah.

  I wanted it to be personal, like I was speaking to him.

  The way I figured it, the best way to do that would be to wait until the day and just do that. Speak to him.

  I threw the notebook in the bin.

  I looked at the time.

  Late.

  Perfect.

  I grabbed my bag, credit and clothes and left through the motel’s bathroom window. I needed to inform someone personally of his passing, and though it could be a risk, and a big one, I owed the Doc that.

  I owed my brother that.

  Wak
es follow lives as they follow boats;

  From small waves to wash; of what came before.

  Leaving ripples that dwindle; like man’s lost hopes,

  From memories, to nothing, but mud on the shore.

  The Internal; External

  Urquhart Drixl

  CHAPTER 52

  I got through the door, after the usual question and answer routine and took a seat in his most comfortable chair.

  ‘Coffee?’ asked Doc.

  ‘Why not,’ I said. It was not a question. ‘And bring your book through, I’ve got something important to tell you.’

  His expression changed. ‘The drinks can wait.’ He stood, leaning in the kitchen doorway, ‘My memory may be shot, literally and metaphorically, but concern for my friends has not diminished along with it. Now, what is wrong, Drake? Huh?’

  ‘Write this down,’ I said. My tone was flat. I just wanted to get the words out.

  He took a pen from a mug without a handle.

  ‘Newt, my brother, Newton Theron, is dead.’

  He wrote it down. Then looked up at me. Then back down at the page, then back up at me. Then I saw something flash across his face, like a thundercloud a hundred miles up casting a shadow over a green field filled with sunshine.

  I knew in my heart that it was recognition, an elusive memory illumination.

  Then it was gone.

  I did not know what I had hoped for, but at least there was no uncomfortable silence or feigned sympathy; for me, there was nothing worse than that.

  I wondered how many more times I would have to tell him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I…’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  We sat in his room, shared the quiet that unspoken sentiments allow between good friends; true friends.

  ‘Tea?’ asked Doc.

  ‘Tea would be fine.’ I said.

  ‘And a massive favour.’