by Max Jager
"I saved you the sin of having children. You'll never bear any kin to take hold of your rotten business. You'll never pass it on. That's good. I hope this whole shit show dies with you, honestly." Ajax said.
"I'll fucking kill you." Was all the neutered man shouted between his crying moans. One of the girls was calling an ambulance. Ajax looked around, there were no cameras and he felt calm at last.
"When they ask you. When they mock you. When you're dying, fatherless. When someone asks you about the origin of your troubles. Tell them. Tell them! It was the devil, come to take his dues." Ajax walked out. He hugged the dark walls and steered clear of the light and found the nearest window to drop from. He looked below, he sighed and felt his bones press down. He stood. He looked at his phone and held it with his fingertips, trying to find Darr's name among the screens. The light made the blood brighter than it was and he looked at his hands with disgust.
He should have put his gloves on first.
12:58 AM
The crowd of people around him jeered and laughed. They pumped their fists and drank from red cups and bottles that fell into lakes of broken glass. Darr watched a man come from this crowd, shirt removed. He was not thin nor strong, but very tall and drunk. The man looked at him, clenched his face and pointed his fists before he shot out. He was pushed forward. Then he found stride. He ran. He put his hand forward to him and aimed it at Darr's face.
Darr stepped to the side and kneed him. He dropped almost instantly. The crowd was silent for a moment, wondering what would happen next and disappointed mostly. But the man stood again and held at his abdomen and breathed with a voracious appetite as all the contents of his lungs had been taken from him. He was not as forward anymore. He put his shoulder towards Darr, only had one fist to him and kept his to its side like a knife. He went forward and Darr stopped him. He kicked his forward leg and watched him limp. He tried again and again Darr kicked. It was more a tap for him, more of a hammer for the limping man who had to stop and feel if something had snapped in his leg. The man would not rest though. He was too drunk to feel it fully and this all excited Darr. Though he tried to hide his grin and hide the feeling of his gut that jumped up to his chest with the growing cheers of the crowd. He did not want to enjoy it but he did.
And the drunk man? The drunk man jumped out again. He did not realize it this time, when he was punched square in the nose and shot back, he did not realize he was down. He only held his knee and rested his whole body on his leg as warmth and embarrassment spread out from his face. Shame was growing in him. The only pain a drunk could feel. A pain that made his heart rush. He raised himself, hoping to uppercut, hoping to do something.
He was slapped. He laid out on the floor.
His arms were shaking as they stood him. His lip was burst and his violent heart would not rest as the blood ran down his face. He could not win, he knew that. But shame would not let him leave.
At that moment, with his feet dragged on the floor, the drunk man had found a knife in his pocket and lunged out to Darr. The two men shouted. They tried pulling back. He screamed. His eyes were bloodshot, yellow hued. He felt himself stop and felt blood spill onto his forehead and was confused for a moment on what or who or how it was there. He looked up, his eyes dragged and slurred and they stopped at Darr's hand. The knife laid there, in his palm. It was bleeding, he saw. Then stopped, he saw. And the drunk walked back with wobbly legs, fear and injury both catching him and causing him to slip on street water.
He hit the back of his head and was out.
And Darr looked at the people with eyes open.
"I'm sorry." He said. He put his back behind him, he put his whole back against a wall and watched the people now silent. Two of the drunk's friends were dragging him out. A woman came out of the crowd to see the wound.
"I'm a doctor, let me help." She said. He would not give her his hand and nearly ran from her and stopped when he touched another person's chest. It was beginning to feel claustrophobic. With the people staring, not laughing or pumping their jovial hands, not entertaining themselves. They just watched. He wanted to push them all. He felt palpitations. He felt like he was dying and asked how he got himself here in the first place. Why he was here. Why he had ever fought. Somewhere in the middle of his zigzagging eyes, he found the reason. The beautiful, brunette reason.
"Thank you." A young girl's voice said. "Thanks." She was raising her hands in the air. Darr cut through the crowd or rather they let him pass. And with him gone, the whole thing sort of disintegrated into nervous laughs and the phones of people calling ambulances and police. But the young woman was there. A brunette, turtleneck sweat, hoop earrings and a ponytail style in between lazy and mischievous with how wild the hairs flew out.
"You didn't have to do that." She said.
"I did." Darr smiled. He wiped blood on his face.
"Let me see your hand." She said. He held it back and she seemed mad at his doing so. He felt bad at lying to her. There was no knife anymore, no wound. He felt looking at her eyes and feeling good in his stomach. For next to her laid her boyfriend, or husband, or what he hoped was her brother. His cheeks were swollen and he was looking in a daze at the half-eaten moon and the slow appetite of the clouds.
"I'm fine," Darr said. "I couldn't leave it like that. They ganged up on your brother."
"My fiancé." She said. Darr's smile died.
"Let me pay for your hospital bill at least." She kept bugging him.
"It's fine, I swear." He was trying hard to seem neutral, trying to hide a growing discomfort. But in his guts and his pockets he could feel it, the buzzing of annoyance or maybe disappointment. He thought, that he no right to think she was single or that he was deserving of any kind of prize for playing the white knight. Then he felt terrible for calling her a prize and it grew, as his face lowered, it grew. More she kept pulling at his arm and thanking him. And more he felt terrible, head falling and drooping. He was lost and felt the urge to run away. At least the drunk had put a fight, he thought.
"What the fuck is this."
Darr heard from a distance. He saw Ajax and the cell phone on his ears and he saw him coming up to him with his angry, wide stride and Darr felt relief. He was salvaged. Like a wave crashing against the shoreline, dragging all the mirth and garbage into the depths.
"What the fuck did you do?" Ajax asked. Darr sighed. He felt air at last.
"These guys were picking on her fiancé. I stopped them." He said. The woman looked at the two.
"You beat the shit out of some drunk asshole. Congratulations. That must have been real tough, real grand for you." Ajax said. "But I've been fucking calling you for twenty minutes now."
"I was inside most of the time, why didn't you just look around. I was by the bar." He said.
"I wasn't interested in staying, alright? What does that have to do with you not answering your phone anyway?" He said.
"My phone? Your phone is ringing," Darr said.
"Yeah asshole, your phone was ringing. So fucking answer it next time. I need you alert." Ajax shouted. His foot tapped. His legs were uneasy and shaky.
"Your phone is ringing." Darr said again.
"Alright, you're breaking my balls now."
"No, your phone is ringing. Answer it." The woman interrupted. Ajax shot a glare at her and felt his pocket. He looked at the screen and grunted like a savage man, lost to time, lost to place. His brows collected on his nose bridge and he pouted as he answered. And all the while, the shadows were collecting on his face as the desperate words were being spoken. But the two did not care.
The woman tugged at Darr and they both turned away from him.
"If he hadn't started the fight." She looked the broken man on the floor. "If he just relaxed after the first few drinks, you wouldn't have gotten hurt. I'm sure your hand isn't fine. I'm sure it's going to cost a lot."
"No, no, I swear I'm fine." He said.
"I don't like being talked down to. This isn't a joke. I feel
guilty and I wanted to at least help you the way you helped us." She began working her purse.
"Believe me, lady. I'm fine." He said but she kept working her purse anyways and seemed more anxious as Darr spoke.
"If you need some money. Maybe a place to stay, any help, give me a call. I don't like owing people debts, I don't like owing anyone anything." She handed the paper to him. He wanted to shout. All feeling came back to him. His depression died, stabbed in his stomach and the wounds were being filled with some new excitement.
He double checked to remember which hand wasn't supposed to be injured and grabbed it. He tried containing his grin and looked down at the lover and his spinning head. He shouldn't have smiled but did. He shouldn't have wanted the urge to call but would, though tried saying otherwise. And the two shared that brief moment, of politeness and humility. Yet Darr's feelings were anything but just. He came in to shake her hand. He wondered if he was too sweaty. She leaned in to shake his and they both felt the brooding face of Ajax. Like a fucking sledgehammer.
"We're leaving. Right the fuck now." He said. The sirens were wailing in the background like the violent voices of a shade.
"I think I need to speak to the police though." Darr said.
"Fuck that, we have bigger problems." Ajax said. Darr opened his mouth but understood. He looked back to the girl.
"What's your name?" He asked.
"Aurela." She said. Aurela, he repeated, every vowel of the word feeding the fire in his chest. He waved and they were gone. There was another sighting and it was time for sterner men.
2:02 AM
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that back there." Darr said.
"Shut your mouth. It doesn't matter now, none of it does." Ajax said. Darr listened. His head was held at an angle as his ear followed the low roar.
The fumes felt hot. They rode up Ajax, up from his leg and all the way out at the top of his suit where it was caught beneath his mask. The sweat collected on his collar as small stains and gave the illusion of rain. He did not know if the heat made him this wet or if it was the danger that raced across the streets, red-colored, like a comet plucked from the black sky. He could see the creature well as it hung low with many legs and many furred ends to his limbs, the tongue shot out at the car and stabbed it, a rapier's deadliness. The car hiccuped. The driver jumped. It fell into the dips of the uneven road and crashed into a fence whose metal dragged along the front of the car and filled the ground with sparks. Then it jumped again, past a factory, past another fence, into a culvert. So fast, so hot it went down, sliding against the diagonal walls of the culvert.
Ajax saw it all but waited atop the safe balcony because he was scared. Every bone snapped into position. His whole body refused to move. Until he felt the rough hand. Until Darr tapped him forward.
"What are you waiting for?" He said. Ajax looked out to the screeching car. Darr was putting his mask on. Both wore the ivory on their face, rough and simple and chipped. It stopped the wind against their red eyes, it hid them well, it made them anonymous ghosts across the rooftops. They jumped off brick and concrete pillars that held the freeways above, they ripped through fences that dangled off their feet like caught weeds. It did not take long to find the car again, speeding into the small sewage shoot. Ajax took out his blade as he ran and rested it on his shoulder. The wind currents grazed it, scratched him until he was finally low and lean and his blade no longer suffered the molasses of drag. He was a half crescent moon. A failed abortion of the celestial bodies, half in shadow and half in blinding moonlight. Darr followed the searchlight his partner left to him.
He tucked his shoulders and raced forward, his guns pointed to the floor. They looked like dogs, acted and hunted like them, heads forward, weapons forward as if in a four-legged sprint. Darr galloped, his mouth open, he felt his tongue dance and he shot at the height of his jump. The beast felt one of its legs go. It passed their racing bodies and drizzled blood. The beast did not jump. It had too many legs, to even feel a loss of speed.
Darr shot again. The car honked. The creature shot back.
It stabbed its tongue into the ground, the mighty Excalibur of a weapon it held. It vaulted. Turned, faced them, whipped his tongue around the floor and watched the rocks shoot out at them like an anchor sweeping against the ocean floor, uncaring of all the fauna and creatures harassed by its wide move. They put their arms in front of their faces and lost sight for a moment. It gained on the car. Three dogs after the shiny object.
"Don't fucking miss." Ajax ran ahead.
"I'm trying not to." Darr watched him. Darr shot again. The air pushed Ajax's hair. And he missed and missed and missed. And Darr spat. A clever animal it was, hiding behind the body of Ajax as the meat shield he was. And Darr grew hungrier. He went forward, past Ajax and nearly pushed him away. Rage was in his hands and his legs that raced forward. The wind snapped and broke at his ears as he was approaching the pace of the car with those inhuman muscles.
Forty, forty-five, fifty, sixty miles per hour.
He shot twice. Too wild though. Too unrestrained. The floor looked molten where his bullets ricocheted and missed. The casings shed off. He was getting closer. His heart pounded. He forgot to breathe. His red eyes were stuck in that glazed craze like the drunkards before, so intoxicated by adrenaline.
He pulled the trigger. Click.
Click.
Click, click, click, click.
Out of ammo. His tension died and he was afraid he would too.
The creature turned. He stared. Darr was searching inside his coat for bullets that spilled to the floor. The barrel withdrew, the smoke rose. Red hot, steaming. He was about to be thrown away and stomped on the floor, turned to ash. Dead. He was going to die. The beast opened its mouth and Darr saw the circular teeth like a shark, a vortex, a blender, a black hole. Darr thought, a precious brief thought. The last thought. He asked himself, would the world die with me?
The blade-tongue shot out. Ajax shot out.
His shoulder pushed Darr aside. His giant steel was held firm in front of them. It did not matter. Through the steel, it went. Breaking the reflected light into a thousand brilliant flaws laid on the floor like a water surface. It stabbed through to Ajax and they all saw blood color the cement floor. Darr was still. The beast charged forward to the car.
Ajax was still on the floor.
"Hey, come on." Darr shouted.
He was still. His body looked stuck into deadlock, crooked on the floor. But Ajax breathed. Darr breathed.
Ajax raised his hand. The hand went to his mouth, he was trying to hold what ever was spilling out. It felt like teeth, teeth in the river of blood, like paled-struck people dragged along flood waters.
"My hucking hace." Ajax said. He had no bottom lip to say f. The mask was embedded in him and he his head could not stop rattling.
"Let me help." Darr said.
"Go." Ajax shouted. "Go!" Or at least, Darr figured. Ajax laid out, he grabbed his face and shook it around, shook the pain, tried to make sense of his throbbing skull.
"Alright." Darr said. There was a loud crash and Darr stared at the hot streaking marks. The smell of ruin was intense as if he was baptized in gasoline. He could smell so well he began to taste the bitterness, ash mostly, in the back of his mouth. Darr ran faster as he saw the creature inspect the car. He was looking inside. It would have grabbed her had the bullet not sounded off and had the rear mirror not snapped into the air. It hit the graffiti-laden walls and the creature took offense.
It shouted out, high-pitched. Like an after blast shock of a missile, a loud horror in the night, the stuff myths were made of. The devilish choir bells, here to alert everyone to the congregation of chaos. The fires that rose and danced like Satan's tongue, the smell of sewage emanating from the dark hole behind the two, the dying woman, burning and bleeding. It was primeval.
It spat. It ran. It raged. The rustling of it's furred face frightened Darr. It looked like a chimera, half-reptile, half-lion. It
wore the crown of hair around its body. Yet it had no pride. It disappeared into the hole.
Darr looked back to the crashed car, to the woman. It was like before, with the men, with a heart that could not decide. Or he thought at least, that it would be a hard choice. He thought his mind could argue better. But his adrenaline was too much, the thought of failure was too much, the thought of killing the monster was too much.
He looked to the car. All he could see was blood on the windshield or what was left of it. It looked like netting. Though it caught no one, only piece of someone. A wheel rolled away, tapped along the surface like a drum line, and fell flat.
'She's probably dead.' He thought. He reloaded his guns. 'Yeah, she's probably dead.' He reasoned.
He prayed for her.