“I'm faster than the wind.”
Billy embraced the full rush as the ramp turned up and before him was the open breaking daylight. As his legs bent up and carried with them the skateboard, he clasped the fingers of his right hand about it. With a gasp at the power of fluidity, he gripped the board tight and opened his arms to the chanting far behind him. He rocketed into the air and left the ramp a memory. He spread his arms as wings and took to the air.
He rose up higher than the great peak of Wind Hill from which he had begun this ride. He wasn't sure where the wind might take him, or just how much higher or how far he might fly. He looked across the great plain of the African grasslands as the sun broke the hills far in the distance, and the light of its great nuclear space fire bore fully upon his tiny form.
Billy scanned the world below him as a great eagle might, hoping that somewhere up ahead he might see the vast ocean that Imena had told him about, and across it the home he longed to return to one day. He hoped that he might see Pop stumbling into the yard to retrieve the morning paper.
He imagined Pop looking into the stratosphere and holding the paper to his brow to shield his eyes from the new sun. Pop would see Billy so high and so free in the air, and the old man would smile and wave the paper wildly to signal that he always knew Billy could do something so great.
Pop would yell for the neighbors and wave the paper into the air like the guy at the airport who brought in the big planes. “That's my boy up there! That's Billy!”
Billy only saw those things in his head though, and he couldn't hear Pop — or anyone else — screaming joyfully toward him. All Billy could hear was the sound of the fierce winds that pulled at his body in flight, and then the laughter of the Devil Bird as Billy touched the sky no longer and began to fall.
“Silly man, only birds can be as birds.”
It didn't make sense to Billy, but falling without holding onto the monster that had brought him to this strange world was more horrifying. Having nothing to hold onto but his board, and not being able to grasp the cold air that rushed over his body as he began to fall, was so much worse.
He knew there were many rocks below, but he would not let himself look down. There was a garden of skull and bones that did not mix well with the soil and only bore the fruit of death. Billy had flown higher and faster than any of the skeletons who had taken the journey before him, but even that had not been enough to keep him in the air for very long. He hadn't gotten near high enough to spit in any god's eye — not that he'd have done such a thing if he had.
He'd spit in the Devil Bird's eye if it was to fly up to him, though. He would spit right into its laughing face.
The impact was brutal, slamming right into his body and near knocking what wind he had inside him out to join the rest of the morning air. He felt the angel's hair next, blowing across his face. He saw her wings and her dark soft arms held him tight as he sailed through the air with her.
He hadn't thought angels were real. One had him though, he couldn't dispute that, and they soared up and away from the cursed mountain of futile sacrifice that was Wind Hill.
His face met hers as she spoke. “I have you, strange and foolish Billy Purgatory.”
He stared into Imena's dark green cat eyes, and watched the wings on her back flap and take the air currents to speed them both away.
Billy smiled as she held him and finished the flight for him that he had begun alone.
III.
Imena set them down on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Her brown falcon wings fluttered; she didn't seem to quite know what to do with them when she was standing on her two legs and not in flight. She had her hands in Billy's and was looking him over. “You are lucky that I was able to reach you in time, Billy. I would have been saddened deeply to have to visit your bones amongst the ones who came before you at the base of the mountain.”
“I'm sure my funeral is gonna be a big to-do, but you got no cause to break out your hanky just yet.” Billy looked down. “Thanks for grabbing me out of the sky. I think I got the whole wind direction part wrong. I always get east and July mixed up.”
She nodded to him as he looked back up and took in her catlike pupils. “You've got cool eyes,” he said.
“Do you think so?” She blinked. “I can see well and far with them.”
“I don't know how you hid those wings from me before.” Billy liked having her hands in his, so he didn't scratch his head to think like he normally would have. “Oh yeah — angel powers.”
“I don't think that I am an angel.” She didn't want to break her hold on him yet either. “I don't know what I am.”
Billy looked out over the water below the cliffs. “Hey, you think you could fly us over that water? It can't be too far, and you could come live with me and Pop. We could go to school together, and you could help me with my algebra and learning about countries.”
Imena held his eyes with hers when he looked back. “I'm sorry, Billy. I have to go and find my own way.”
“Oh, cool.” He tried to look down, but she was too pretty to look away from. “I get it. I'm a lone wolf, and…”
Imena leaned in and kissed Billy on the cheek. Billy felt the blood rush to his face and hoped that his scar wasn't turning pink. It felt nice getting a kiss from Imena, so he didn't worry about it too much.
“Now, you walk that way.” One of her hands left his and he didn't like that much, but he paid attention to the direction she pointed down the cliffs. “You stay up high until the path leads down and you reach the fishing village. From there, you can surely find a ship to take you back to America, and your father.”
“We can't fly there?”
She shook her head. “My way is back to the skies. I don't know when I'll get to come down again.”
“Okay, I'll walk like you said.”
“Make sure you do. Do not go down to the coast until you reach the village. It is dangerous here.”
Billy nodded. “So, I guess this is goodbye?”
Imena nodded too.
“Well, you gotta fly into the air and I gotta go become a pirate. We got lots of adventures still to go on, but always remember — no matter what — we always had sweet love times in Albuquerque.”
He felt the wind about him kick up as Imena's wings flapped. He kept his hand in hers until her body floated over his and he couldn't hold his arm up any higher.
“Africa.” He heard her call down to him as she rose to join the sun rays and vanished into the clouds.
“Damn, I thought love times was a sure signal that I needed one more dose of sugar.” Billy turned his gaze from the sky and walked to the edge of the cliffs. “I gotta work on my kiss signaling, or it's gonna be one long, lonely life.”
Billy peered down the cliffs and the caves below. There were plenty of big rocks to jump on and bounce his way down there. He thought he saw canoes down the beach. The dumb kids at his school were always talking about summer camp and how they paddled across the lake in a canoe. If they could do it…
Billy was tired of walking, that was for sure; he was never going anywhere again that didn't have a sidewalk. He jumped down to the first rock.
“This is tons easier.” He hopped from that rock to a lower rock. It was actually kinda fun. “I'll just Jack-In-The-Ass down to that summer camp and steal one of those canoes.”
Billy sprung down to the next rock like a mountain goat.
“What could be down there that's so bad, anyhow?
~3~
PURGATORY DON'T SURF
THERE WAS GUNFIRE OVERHEAD — as if he didn't have enough problems. Billy Purgatory was, after all, being chased by what seemed to be every last member of a cult of shark worshippers. Beaches sucked, Billy was deciding he was never gonna take some broad on a long walk on one. “She could' a just said, ‘Shark-People live down there. Don't try and steal their canoes’.”
He kept his board in front of him as he ran and ducked, hoping that somehow, some way, somebody would have decided to build a sid
ewalk along this beach so he could throw down, kick-off, and roll. “Those shark-dudes would never catch me on the street,” Billy thought. “Argentina sucks. There ain't been a highway in this whole damn place.”
One day, when he'd grown older, Billy Purgatory would visit Argentina, and it would occur to him that he had actually been in Africa when he was a boy, running for his life and cursing the lack of proper sidewalk infrastructure. That future thought would be interrupted quickly by a girl with a sexy eye-patch and a machete named Calliope, and he wouldn't have much time to dwell on how he had mixed up “Place Names of the World” when he'd been ten.
Regardless, he would have the thought.
The immense dust cloud which Billy Purgatory had been running straight for, because he didn't have a better plan and it was the opposite direction of all the freaks with their teeth filed into triangles, began to die down and blow left. The boy was beginning to make out the shape of a large airplane. Billy had seen something like it last summer, when he had hopped the fence at the airport to take in the local air show. They had this big jet plane sitting out for people to look at — Billy dug it because it had a wicked looking face drawn onto the front of it with sharp teeth — like a shark…
“Oh shit.” Billy picked up the pace and got ready to barrel left, towards the ocean. “Those shark dudes have an army plane.”
The waves crashed and the dust blew. The plane was black, not green like the one Billy had seen before. The wings of the plane tilted up and the jets were shooting right at the ground, kicking up all that dust. Billy tried to see if it had a shark face painted on the front as bullets zipped over his head from the direction of the plane.
“At least those shark-dudes don't have guns.” Spears began to strike the sand to his left, then to his right. Billy made a vow that when he got out of this, he was going to war against spears. As he mumbled the last word of his vow, one of the spears struck the ground right in front of him, catching his foot and sending him tumbling end over end into the sand.
Billy wiped the sand out of his eyes, lying on his butt and staring back at the wall of cultists barreling towards him. The closer they got, the harder they were taking bullets straight to the chest — and those were the lucky ones — the headshots didn't leave anything above the shoulders but a lifeless neck. Whoever was in that plane didn't like these shark cult people none at all.
Billy rolled to dodge a spear, and blocked the shark-toothed tip of another flying javelin with the deck of his board. The shark guys were putting up a big show, making wild hand motions and baring their sharpened up mugs, but the gunfire from the rear of the plane was unceasing and deadly-accurate.
He pulled himself up, looking back. The big plane sat on the edge of the beach, and the rear door lowered into the sand. Billy counted six guys; they kind of looked like army men. They rocked black fatigues and body armor with cool-assed helmets. Two of the guys were on their knees, firing, and the other four were standing above, firing over their heads. These guys didn't look scared of a damn thing in the world, and were so badass they seemed bored with taking out crazy shark-cult people. It was like dunk-a-cultist day at the county fair.
Spears began to litter the ground. Just when Billy was about to run the numbers in his head and try and figure out what Pop would tell him to do, he jumped up on his own and made a beeline towards the ramp of that plane. Going back the way he came wasn't happening, especially now that these shark-dudes would have their loincloths all in a wad over all their buddies getting mowed down on the beach. The ocean probably had real sharks in it; plus, badasses don't swim. If these army guys were gonna shoot him, then there wasn't gonna be anything he could do about it anyhow — might as well make it easy for them and get it over with.
Billy left the screams and the calling to dark gods at his back and ran headfirst towards that ramp — and luckily, nobody shot his narrow ass. His foot hadn't been so happy in days when it left the sand, hit that metal grate, and started up. One of the guys on his knees grabbed the boy and pulled him into the plane, then immediately went back to shooting. Billy's knees hit the metal floor of the hold of the plane, then his palms, as his board sailed out of his arms, hit its wheels, and began to roll.
Billy looked up, breathing heavily and happy to be alive, as the noise from the gunfire hurt his ears and he felt the plane begin to shake — like they would soon be lifting off the ground. Billy's skateboard continued to roll until it was stopped by a big, black boot walking down on the deck. The foot raised then slammed the end of the board, and it went flying into the air. Billy rose up as the man in the black fatigues caught it effortlessly in his gloved hands.
He was dressed like the other guys; he had a belt with two pistols on either hip and a knife in each boot. He didn't wear a helmet and his face was straight and long, with hard, definite lines which trailed up to ice-blue eyes. His long blonde hair was pulled back and tied to hang down his back.
Billy lifted his bloody knees from the floor as the plane shook more. The sound spiked up as the engines truly fired. Billy could hear the gunfire stop and the mechanical whirr of the ramp at his back begin to kick in. The drawbridge raised on whatever cultists still tried to hold the beach.
Billy stared up high into the eyes of the man standing before him.
“That's my skateboard, mister.”
The man chuckled and cast his eyes down, admiring it for a half second as he spun it into the air. He reached down with it and Billy closed his fingers around the trucks at the other end.
The tall, blonde man let go and Billy pulled the board back into his arms, feeling lucky that he still had his one and only friend after the adventure he'd just been through.
The man pointed to a row of benches to Billy's left as the other black-armored men began filing past them. “Have a seat.” His accent was thick — maybe Russian? “Put on your seatbelt, young Billy Purgatory.”
Billy looked around to see other men doing the same as the plane rocked; he felt weightless for an instant as it lifted with a mighty roar off the beach.
“Who the hell are you, blondie?” True, this guy had just saved Billy's ass, but the boy was learning to ask questions first and then smack-skulls later.
The man began walking towards the cockpit as he spoke. “I am the Broom. I have come to retrieve you and return you to your parents.”
Billy's legs were shaky, and as the plane tilted he had no choice but to fall into one of the bench seats and go for the seatbelt. As he clicked the buckle, he felt the words of the Russian hit him with full force.
“My… parents?”
Billy looked for the Russian, but all he got in reply was the image of the cockpit door closing.
~4~
PURGATORY MANOR
IN THE TEN YEARS HE'D BEEN KICKING, Billy Purgatory had never ridden in a limo before — and if anyone would ever ask him about riding in one, he would shrug his shoulders and pontificate that he already owned the fanciest set of wheels on planet Earth. Even if there were limousines on Mars (the planet, not the god) his skateboard would still have ‘em beat. Billy didn't drink any of the fancy seltzer water they kept in that thing, and he figured the booze was watered down. Pop had told Billy one time, “Drinking and fighting is about the same; if you're gonna do either one, then don't half-ass it. Stare ‘em down, reach for the good stuff, take your chips and push ‘em all in.”
Billy could have sure gone for a bag of BBQ chips.
The Russian, Broom, sat across from Billy. The boy had given up asking him questions back at the airplane — the guy said nothing. All Broom had said was, “Time for a car ride.” He'd changed clothes, and now wore a black suit with a vest and tie and all that noise —the guy even carried a fancy gold pocket watch. He kept the black leather gloves on his hands, which made him look like some mastermind character out of one of Billy's comic books. The guy was all about dressing up, and Billy rolled his eyes as he'd followed him across the airfield from the plane. The only thing that Billy had fig
ured out about this guy is that he was a potential (but, unconfirmed) badass, and that he sure loved himself.
Billy had his head against the door of the limo and drifted in and out of sleep. He would wake up and notice the terrain and familiar places. The first thing he'd zeroed in on that told him he was home was that old rusty water tower. Billy didn't wanna climb it and skate down one of the legs as much as he had before he'd gotten lost in Asia. When he would look over at Broom, the guy would be sitting quietly and writing or drawing into a leather book. Beyond whatever it was he was doing, Broom seemed very uninterested in his surroundings, and in Billy Purgatory.
“You making a comic book, Russian?”
Broom's pen stopped the sweeping motion across the page it had been attacking, and he looked up at Billy. “A what?”
Billy rose up from leaning and sleeping and stretched. “You know, a comic book? They're the only kind of books that don't suck because there's just enough words not to give you a headache from reading words. And there are cool pictures of badasses who kick evil right in the marble-box.”
Broom leaned forward slightly, “Oh, that is your mythology? Your hero stories?”
Billy put his hands on his board, which was lying across his lap. “Yeah, whatever. Look, if you're making a comic, you should draw a dude in there that looks like me — who has a skateboard like this one and black-jacks monsters in their trash-talkin’ jaw-dumpsters until they shut the hell up.”
Broom lifted the book and turned it so that Billy could see what his pen and ink had been creating. There were lots of words that he didn't need to put in to make a good comic. One whole page was nothing but words — and even worse, numbers that looked like math. The only thing worse than too many words was too much math. Half of the second page was filled with a drawing of what looked like an island, and had a big black dome in the center of it. That part was kinda cool, but it looked like there were words on that too.
“That the bad guy's secret lair?”
Broom actually smiled. “Hardly, young Purgatory.”
Billy Purgatory and the Curse of the Satanic Five Page 4