Blood On Borrowed Wings: A Dark Fantasy Thriller

by Darren Stapleton

  Yes.

  He moved in.

  *

  The bolt found the soft skin and cords of muscle above my collarbone and exploded through them easily. A white hot blistering pain seared down my left side and I felt a strange heat radiate up my neck and face. Sickly warmth. My legs wanted to give way, but I could not fall. The bolt had pinned me to the wall. When I made even the slightest movement a tumult of fireworks ignited in every single nerve ending and fibre and my legs tried to buckle; I was going nowhere, fought to remain as still as possible and keep my feet.

  Then I heard his laughter.

  As he walked over I noticed he was saying something to me, probably to try to assess my condition from the strain or nature of my reply. I kept quiet. He shone the torch in my contorting face and laughed some more.

  ‘Well what have we here? Stuck me a live one by all accounts.’

  I think I grunted. I felt warm blood streaking down my back.

  ‘Pigs grunt,’ he said.

  I whispered something.

  He leaned closer to hear what I had said, his huge frame blocked out the light in the garden. His silhouette served to make him bigger somehow, a troll waiting for light to fill the blanks in.

  ‘I said,’ I swallowed down a spluttering cough, ‘I’m sure grunting is a sound you’re … ugh … familiar with.’ I couldn’t see his face but the laughter stopped. He stamped on my foot and then drove a battering punch into my guts. I felt the muscles and skin wrap around his fist and heard the air dessert my body. I went with the punch, arched up, tried to stand on tiptoe instead of instinctively doubling over, trying to keep my body as still as possible. The pain was unbearable. His shadowy darkness leaned in and grabbed the feathers of the bolt, barely protruding from my skin. He just tapped it with his finger, that’s all. It sent a wave of pain and nausea through me so violent that I am sure I would have vomited if I had had anything left in my treacherous stomach to put on display. As I fought to keep my balance his laughter started to fill my head with noise and the pain ripping through my frame became almost exquisitely high pitched and clangourous; it hit me.

  I had to hang on for Doc. Do something. Get free to warn him about … about the whole mess … about...

  I could feel my feet slipping away.

  Then, out of nowhere, something hit Coyle.

  How may we ever claim good judge of character when all of our true friends come to us, not through choice, but through circumstance?

  The Aunt’s Debutante

  C. Balliste

  CHAPTER 70

  Coyle slowly opened his eyes and watched as the dark world gradually swam into focus. He was gagged. He was bound by something he could not see. He was still in the garden but on his side and viewed everything from a ninety-degree angle. He saw Drake being helped to lie down on the grass. The other, smaller man made him inhale something pungent and watched as Drake’s eyes flickered open.

  ‘Drake. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Can you hear me, Drake?’

  ‘Doc?’

  ‘I need to apply a dressing and get you somewhere quickly to get that bolt out. I’ll just …

  ‘Doc. Wh…Where is he?’

  ‘Who? Ah, oh yes. He is over there, where he landed when I brought the plant pot down on his head.’

  ‘Is he …’

  ‘He is secured and bound with some chain I found near your feet.’

  Coyle watched Drake retch.

  ‘Duh..duh...do not take your eyes off him.’

  ‘Drake Theron, I know how to secure someone, now come on, let’s get you inside.’

  ‘No Doc. I got them. The wings. Get me to the car … we can go where we need to from there. We have to go. Now’

  ‘What car? Wings? Where?’

  Doc looked at Drake and then at Coyle, then back at Drake.

  ‘We need to move. Help me up. I …’ He swooned and had to lie back down.

  ‘Steady Drake, come on.’ Doc helped him slowly to his feet and they made their way out of the gate.

  As they left, Coyle renewed his efforts at escape and found he had little or no strength in any of his limbs. It was like the thought was there, the will was there, but the response was missing. It took all his strength and concentration to try and sit up and this only served to roll him slightly over onto his back.

  Doc walked back through the gate and over to him.

  ‘It’s called Isidium-14. A lichen based muscle relaxant I helped develop in my clinical days. It really is quite a potent paralytic, entirely organic too.’ Doc whispered; the voice came from very close to his ear.

  Coyle tried to look up at Doc, then stopped trying to move at all.

  ‘Good,’ said Doc. ‘Now relax, and I will get this over with a soon as possible. My friend says that I have to inject you again so you will be paralysed for a considerable length of time.’

  Coyle watched droopy eyed and unable to move as the doctor injected him again, he felt nothing. Not a pinprick. The Doc then studied some written notes, frowned, read them again then earnestly said, ‘You will soil yourself, possibly on a number of occasions, over the next twelve hours. We will alert the Mudheads or the local media to your location. Or maybe both.’ He consulted his notes again, ‘Drake has yet to decide.’

  Doc then removed a scalpel from his inside pocket.

  ‘I usually say, “Stay still” for subcutaneous facial surgeries, when the subjects are awake, but in this case …’

  Coyle’s pupils narrowed, his breathing was quick and shallow.

  Doc leaned over him, so his face entirely filled Coyle’s skewed field of vision. ‘Your forehead,’ Doc said, answering the unasked question, then brought the scalpel up to make the first incision.

  ‘Just one word. An odd one, but there you go.’

  He made his cuts.

  Coyle tried to blink blood from his eyes, then gave up and kept them as tightly closed as he could as the Doctor quickly, but neatly, carved a word onto Coyle’s forehead.

  ‘WOOF!’ it said. Exclamation mark and all.

  Unhappiness – Change – Equilibrium – Contentment – Boredom – Unhappiness (Repeat)

  Life Equations:

  Universal patterns of existence.

  Crampton & Hall

  CHAPTER 71

  I wiped at my watering eyes as I came around in the safe house. The plain white walls and sparse furnishings added to the feeling that I was in a sterile environment, even though it was a rented apartment rather than a hospital bay. I wondered if Doc had remembered to call someone about Coyle, happy that we had suitably humiliated him. He would have probably preferred death.

  Surrounding me were implements, dressings, diagrams and notebooks; the functional and the necessary. The room smelled of antiseptic and was dust and personality free. Thick curtains were drawn across the windows and with the unforgiving lights that seemed to allow no shadows or darkness into any corner, I was clueless to the time of day.

  The old, adapted massage table I was laying on was comfortable enough and I could feel an indentation in the pillow beneath my neck where people placed their faces when having spinal treatment. The stark lighting meant I had to squint and blink repeatedly to keep the room from swimming out of focus. Doc had his back to me. His white coat was neat and immaculately clean, a halo emanated from him and seemed to dull the hum of the equipment he had plugged in.

  ‘Your perceptions will be slightly askew.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Your pain management is so comprehensive that I have had to bring you out of your sedation with a stimulant that can sometimes lead to disorientation or hallucinations.’

  I shook my head at both of him.

  ‘Drake. Can you hear what I am saying?’

  I swallowed warm air down my sandpaper throat. An icy chill spread throughout my guts.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I hear you. Thirsty.’

  ‘Listen carefully. I am about to remove the bolt from your trapezium. Y
ou are prepped and ready. I need to know if you are under the influence of any other medication.’

  ‘Coyle?’

  He checked his notes, ‘I followed your instructions. Got your stuff from the bath panel in the motel bathroom too, the one next to where you stayed. There was someone in the motel room but I just told them I was a Doctor and…well I got it, just like you said.’

  ‘Drink,’ I rasped.

  ‘Not possible. Now, did they give you any medication at the …the … he looked at his notes again....wherever you just were?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The laceration to your chest was a mess, deep, I have stitched it.’ He paused to read his notes. ‘The contusion to your knee is iced and compressed. Your shoulder wound needs tending now, Drake, do you understand?’

  I nodded. Flinched again at the pain.

  ‘You have lost some blood, but not so much that this will be problematic.’

  ‘Who for?’ I asked.

  Doc leaned over me, his face was a mixture of frustration and consternation; his breath smelled of antiseptic, or maybe that was my chest.

  ‘Drake, you asked me to attach the wings last night. Do you remember?’

  I nodded. ‘They’re Newt’s.’

  ‘Yes. I know. I recommend we do this as soon as possible to lessen the likelihood of rejection.’

  I smiled and sang something about flying.

  ‘I can do it whilst you are under anaesthetic for the bolt extraction. Kill two birds with one stone so to speak, do you understand?’

  I nodded again.

  ‘I need to know you understand, Drake and want me to do it. I cannot rely on my notes for your consent.’

  I began to close my eyes then a wave of nausea made me open them, searching the spinning room for something solid to hold on to, to orientate with. Tried to focus on a metal gurney in the clean white room. I grabbed Doc and a lucid moment.

  ‘Do it Doc. Do it well. Newt...’

  ‘Rest now, Drake, rest. And I will see you on the other side.’ Doc walked away, picked up a pad and read his notes. I heard the sound of surgical implements being checked off a list.

  ‘You can do this,’ Doc said.

  I did not understand at first but think he may have been talking to himself. He slipped a cocktail of pain and sedation drugs into my bloodstream via the intravenous bag, and turned up the flow on the drip feed. And as the pain and room and everything retreated down the vastly imploding corridors of my vision, one thought echoed out to lead me down into the abyss of unconsciousness where even time does not pass:

  Two birds, one stone.

  Two birds, one stone.

  First Newt, now me?

  The abyss, it seems, knows pessimism well.

  *

  To me it felt like I had blinked; no sooner had my eyes closed than the world was swimming back into focus and I was beginning to wonder if Doc had not given me enough anaesthetic. I stared at the smooth surface of the tiled ceiling then realised I was laying on my front looking through a hole in the massage table at the tiled floor. I tried to raise my head but a horrible weight bore down on my neck, pressing my face back into the gap.

  My wings.

  The weight of them there, folded, at my back, like two heavy hands in supplication.

  It was done.

  Footsteps.

  ‘Stay still, Drake.’

  ‘I’m going nowhere.’ My voice was raspy and thick with sleep. I saw Doc’s feet appear in my small viewing window. His shoes were dark but I could still make out some blood on the toe caps.

  I felt light tugs and prods as he inspected his work.

  The ruffle of feathers.

  I frowned.

  Slipped away.

  Slept again.

  ‘Kch’

  ‘Ake.’

  ‘Drake.’

  Footsteps.

  I awoke again, looked down and saw the same shoes, but clean now.

  ‘Doc?’

  ‘Brace yourself. We have to rotate you onto your side.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘You and I, Drake. The muscles and nerves need flexing, exercising. Necrosis is our biggest danger now.’

  I felt disorientated. Too hot.

  ‘Hurts.’

  ‘I cannot inhibit your pain anymore, I am afraid, Drake. It is important you are unimpeded so that you may feel things, so your nerves can re-establish their old pathways and connections.’

  ‘Has it worked?’

  ‘There is no way of knowing until we see if the nerves and muscles have spliced. The wings still had the full range of movement when attached and calcification was at a minimum. The receptors were pliant and your nerve endings, where nubbed, were relatively open and, with some cutting, malleable enough to splice sufficiently. Rejection is highly unlikely, but we must still keep a watchful eye.’

  ‘Is that a yes?’

  ‘It’s a “maybe”.’

  ‘OK.’ I brought my left arm up to use a lever to raise myself up on the bed. I ached all over and the deep-seated pain on my spine helped to give me perspective for the problems with the bolt wound, my chest and knee.

  ‘You will still be groggy.’

  ‘No shit. Feel like I’ve been asleep for a hundred years. How long have I been out?’

  Doc checked his notes. ‘Almost three days.’

  ‘Three days!’

  ‘Almost.’

  I wondered how things would have been progressing in my absence, how many people were looking for me. How close they were. As if reading my thoughts Doc turned back a few pages in his book and started to read.

  ‘No visits from anyone, no day callers or people watching from the rooftops. You have not made the news and neither has Coyle. There has been no interruption to your recovery save one night of sleep conniptions where you ran a fever and shouted out a woman’s name half a dozen times until more heavily sedated.’

  My head banged and felt as if it were full of sloshing Lowlands mud trying to find a level. I rubbed my eyes and head. ‘What did you use? A lump hammer?’

  ‘The word you are looking for is thank you.’

  ‘That’s two wor…’

  I screamed as he surprised me by rocking me over onto my side, but went with it. It felt as if someone had attached a high tensile wire through my spine and was pulling at its core in the opposite direction every time I tried to move.

  ‘Now stay still whilst I examine my work under gravity.’

  I closed my eyes and fought for a memory.

  It was not superficial like trying to remember somebody’s forgotten name or an internal map to a road less travelled, no it was deeper than that. It was like trying to recall a loved one’s scent or the sound of their laugh in the night, long after they are dead and gone. It was there somewhere, at the centre of me, hidden away in the mechanisms and cogs of physical apparatus, a key to wind the clock, the intricate movement. I flexed my back, my shoulders, rode the pain at my collarbone and chest, stayed with it, pushed, but felt nothing.

  Nothing.

  No scent.

  No laughter.

  Just a noise filling my head with the sound of rushing water. The sound of footsteps again; fainter now, fainter still until they carried me down, away, into an ocean of all engulfing syncope.

  I drowned.

  We conceal more from ourselves, than of ourselves.

  Hope Crescent

  J.K.Munt

  CHAPTER 72

  ‘Junkies,’ Vedett muttered as he walked behind the three gang members who were each carrying a substantially heavy bag for him. He watched as they puffed and snorted from the effort, probably thinking the credits and fix he had offered them did not seem so generous now. They were not built for travel or heavy labour, nor any labour for that matter. To Vedett these men resembled the living dead, shambling along full of groans and whimpers, trying to remember what it was like to be normal and scratching along existence’s very narrow path to meet their own gradual and inevitable des
iccation.

  Having disembarked the balloon and paying the crew modestly to wait for their return journey, Vedett and his shuffling drug stoked entourage had walked the last mile across the Nimbus City rotting core to the library. The roads were mottled and deserted here, heaved tarmac and overgrown signs marked where nature was battling with civilisation, and winning. Greenery forced its way into and out of structures; invasive fingers finding weaknesses in roofs, bricks and architecture. The four came out into a small clearing near a gothic looking church and Vedett saw the library.

  He had heard the old building was in disrepair, but its state of dilapidation still surprised him. He was wary of setting foot across the threshold in case his weight on the floorboards should start off some chain reaction culminating in the collapse of the walls and roof. Even his hired help seemed reluctant to enter.

  ‘Leave the bags there,’ Vedett said, pointing at the steps leading up to the main door. They dropped the bags and then looked at him, like lost children, expectantly, waiting for their next instruction. Eventually one of them was brave enough to speak.

  ‘Can we …’

  ‘Here,’ said Vedett and threw three small brown wraps into the overgrown brush and foliage to the front of the library grounds. ‘That should keep you busy for ten minutes or so.’ They scrambled after their fixes.

  ‘If you are not here when I have finished, I will leave without you.’ They ignored him.

  He raised his voice to a shout: ‘And keep out!’ They all froze as if a gun had gone off next to their ear, then carried on rummaging through the undergrowth like nothing had been said.

  Vedett made his way inside.