I flipped the tyre iron, gestured at her; and smiled.
“You’re the feral, in that example.”
She leapt over the rubble and the needles flashed - I tumbled to the side and swiped at her wrist with the tyre iron. She dropped the needle and stumbled for a second.
I straightened up and jumped in with an overhead strike - but she was too fast - her other hand came up and the needle cut a gash across my ribs, scraping over the bone.
The tyre iron sailed harmlessly in front of her face and I brought my empty fist up into her stomach. She doubled over and I grabbed the needle, launching a headbutt that crunched against her cheekbone and blinded me with pain.
She slipped the needle from my grip and I staggered backward, shaking my head. My vision came rushing back. The needle was inches in front of my face and her wide smile seemed surreal and massive. I dropped to the ground and the metal scraped along my scalp.
I buried my head into her stomach and pushed away from the wall; we toppled over the body of her guard and I fell on top of her. The needle skittered harmlessly across the stones and lay in the dust.
She looked after it and then back at me. Her face was the same furious mask. She bucked her hips and tried to throw me off but I wrapped my feet beneath her and tried to grab her by the throat. She turned quickly to the side and bit down on my wrist. I felt the veins and tendons crushing against bone and I hit her with the tyre iron - a swift series of blows that sprayed blood across us both but didn’t weaken her bite.
She went limp with my wrist in her teeth. Her jaws were still clenched around the joint. I wedged the tyre iron between her lips and pried them open. My wrist fell from her teeth and I quickly pulled my sleeve over the wound. My grip was weak and my fingers shook. Her teeth were bright red and her face had contorted into a vicious smile. The bile rose in my throat and I shut my eyes and forced it down.
I pulled myself to my feet and leaned against the wall. With every beat of my heart a wave of agony shot through my body.
More pain than man.
The bodies were still and quiet. I found a heavy piece of stone and dropped it on each feral skull in turn. It bounced off the bone after a sickening, splitting sound and the opening in their skulls exhaled a satisfied sigh that made me cringe.
I left the stone in the dust - now stained deep red and black, and turned to the Insect. Her eyes were watering and the tears made tiny dark patches in the dust. She didn’t move. Her chest didn’t rise.
The feral with the club wore a thick leather belt - I took it and strapped it beneath my jacket and across my chest, wedging the club against the side of my ribs.
The two remaining ferals carried a shiv each. One was thin but sharp - folded layers of a soft metal wrapped with worn silver tape at the handle. The other was rusted and heavy - cut to a dull point and clumsily serrated. I put one in each pocket, fished around the rubble and dug up an unbroken jar of shine, laying it gently by the doorway.
I picked up the Insect’s needles and threw them through the window - she looked thin; declawed.
I took hold of her ankles and dragged her into the building. Her cheeks were wet. I turned her face away from me with the toe of my boot.
The Insect was motionless on the floor, mouth stretched into a posthumous smile, skin still slick with tears. I poured a mouthful of shine over my wrist and and took a long sip. My stomach felt like it was tearing open. I suppressed the nausea and drank until the pain passed and the jar was empty. My chest grew warm and my pulse slowed.
I chewed on a blue and kicked the needles into a neat pile.
She had modified her belt with wire loops to hold the needles. I put one foot on her stomach and pulled the belt from her trousers, throwing it on the floor.
Her eyes were glazed and distant and two fat tears welled in the corners. I bit my lip. My sleeve rubbed painfully on the perfect recreation of her teeth in my wrist.
I took the serrated shiv from my pocket and knelt over her, holding her head in place with my knees.
This was grim business.
The Tarboy had dragged himself across the room and was propped against the wall. There was a dark patch where he had been lying. His face was bruised but his eyes were no longer swollen.
I threw the head at his feet. It bounced a few times and settled with a vacant grimace. He looked from the head to me and back again. His expression didn’t change. I avoided his glance and stared at the wall over his head.
“Okay. It’s the Big one. Are you up to it?”
He sighed and said nothing, shifting his feet in the dirt.
“Take this down to the river. Put it on display. Get artistic with it. Try to blend in as best you can. That’s step one. Got it so far?”
He cleared his throat but remained silent. I kept staring at the wall. The tar had bled through the mortar and the bricks were weeping black.
“Step two. Head to the brothel and tell them what you saw down at the river.”
I drew a few meaningless lines in the dust with the heel of my boot.
“Step three. I’m going to try to leave Muscles’ body in the alleyway near the vet. Near where he got you. I need somebody to report that and all this to Jesus. They’ve probably seen you already so take this…”
I fished the coil of copper from my jacket and threw it to him.
“…pay a feral to do it. Tell them this is about Justice. They’ll love it.”
I looked at his face. He was staring at me. He threw the copper wire back at my feet.
“Keep it. Nobody would want that. I’ll figure it out.”
I nodded.
“Okay. Get on it. And in the meantime, I’ll take care of our puffed-up friend.”
I shook my hips. The needles rattled and the club bounced against my chest. I smiled a broad smile and spread my arms.
He ignored the display; scooping the severed head from the ground, and vaulting over the windowsill.
And I’m left, jingling alone.
I sighed, slapped myself in the face and swallowed two blues. I shook my feet and hands and tried to encourage a little sensation in my chest.
I had an hour at the most.
I wanted it to be a good hour.
The feral I had freed from the cage had been stuffed under the floorboards. Fractured. The memory of floorboards. I dragged the body up to the second floor and sat it against a wall.
I was less than twenty feet from Muscles. I looked directly into his window - he sat on the bed and held his face in one hand, slowly sipping shine with the other. His chest was bare and the skin on his back was red and covered in open sores.
His face was broken - his nose shattered, and his eye was swollen and purple with the lingering memory of my thumb. His muscles seemed to hang loosely from his shoulders. He was slowly collapsing.
I propped the feral up like a marionette and whistled sharply. Muscles turned and squinted. His good eye was swollen. He put the shine on the floor and walked to the window. I waved the feral’s dead arm to him and put my head on its shoulder - splitting my face into a wide smile.
His bearing changed immediately. He squared up - his muscles shook and his veins seemed to writhe and pulsate like snakes. I put the corpse’s finger to my mouth and gestured for quiet. He turned and stormed from the room. His footsteps shook the building. I let the feral slide to the ground and dropped between the floors - moving out into the alleyway and away from the vet.
I blew a high, tuneless whistle - scuffing my feet in the dust. There were no voices. Just the heavy stomping of Muscles rounding the corner.
I moved into the middle of the alley and he stopped ten feet from me. He was enormous. The sun shone from the sweat on his shoulders and his fists looked heavy and brutal.
I drew two needles and tapped them together.
“Recognize these?”
He looked at the steel and back to me, taking two cautious steps forward, jaw clenched, silent.
“I killed your feral-loving fri
end.”
I punctuated the sentence with metal on metal. He took two more steps.
“And I killed your boy.”
I smiled and spat in the dust between us. His mouth twitched. His chest echoed with an animal groan that shook his body with fury and sorrow.
I crouched and ran in low - keeping to his dead, black eye. He leapt to the side and threw a fast hook that threw a cloud of sweat from his shoulders. I sidestepped and it missed comfortably - I jammed the first needle up and underneath his shoulder-blade. It slid in easily and he cried out in pain.
He twisted to face me and launched a flurry of punches - he was fast and had a long reach, I dipped to the side but caught one in the shoulder. I stumbled and he moved in with a fast straight - I jammed the other needle in his stomach and his fist hit the brick behind me.
The blow shook the wall and dust fell from the roof.
I danced backward - back into the middle of the alley, drawing the other two needles.
Blood poured from the metal pipe in his stomach. He raised his fists but flinched at the pain; the sharp intake of breath shot a spray of saliva into the air between us.
I ducked in and kicked him in the groin - he doubled over and clutched at his stomach. The air was thick with his sweet breath.
I beat him with the blunt side of the pipe - over his shoulders and his neck, the small of his back and his face. The sharp slap of metal on skin echoed along the alley.
He threw a weak uppercut to my stomach and I stepped into it - pushing my stomach painfully into his fist and jamming the needle into his neck. It entered below his ear and came out on the other side. He tried to breathe but the air came in wet gasps and he choked, collapsing to his knees - exhaling blood into the dust.
I took a few steps back, tapping the last needle against my knee. He struggled on the ground - recoiling at every movement of the pipes. He had more blood than I had ever seen. It poured out in rich red streams and clung to the dust hungrily.
“You beat up a feral last night. Do you remember?”
He writhed on the ground - fingers tentatively grabbing the pipes and immediately shrinking away from the pain.
“Don’t say anything. You beat up the Doctor. Do you remember that?”
I kicked a cloud of dust into his face. It clung to the skin and turned to red mud.
“I loved the Doctor. Again. Don’t say anything.”
I crouched in the dust. My face was in line with his. He was sinking fast - folding into a writhing mass of muscles and skin.
“And lastly. You beat me. And I love me most of all.”
I smiled and tapped the needle on the ground.
“Look at me. This is Justice. Touch your stomach. Touch your neck. You can feel it. It’s not fair. And it’s not moral. And there are no ethics involved.”
I stood up and moved toward him. He tried to scramble away but fell onto his side - the needle in his gut twisted against the ground and tore a jagged hole in his stomach. The air smelled like boiling rough. He lay on his side - his head twisted upward, breathing shallow like a drowning fish.
“So I guess what we’ve learned about Justice today…”
I put a foot on either side of massive his chest. He grabbed my calves with his hands but there was no strength left. I lined the needle up carefully and his eye opened wide. The pupil dilated and his mouth opened in a voiceless scream.
“…is that Justice is the joy of the stronger person.”
I pushed the needle into his eye. It stuck and sat upright from his skull. He arched his back and convulsed from side to side. I fell into the dust and reclined, watching him struggle. He tried to pull himself to his feet but stumbled and fell onto his side. I stood up and walked to him - lowering myself close to his ear and grabbing the needle in his skull with one hand.
“And sadly, it looked like your muscles aren’t enough to qualify you for that.”
I took hold of the needle and turned his head upward, pulling the club from the belt against my chest. I could feel his heartbeat through the metal of the pipe.
I steadied the needle and hammered it with the club. It pushed easily through his brain and stuck at the back of his skull. I lifted the club high and brought all of my force down onto the pipe - it broke the skull and drove deep into the dust.
I took a few steps back and looked at what I had done.
The alley was spattered in blood. The smell was cloying and my skin felt greasy.
Muscles was twisted and bloody and nailed to the ground and had lost all semblance of humanity.
I spat a thin stream of bile into the dust and suppressed the urge to vomit, shaking my head and wiping my hands on my pants. I pointed to him with one shaking finger.
“This was all your fault, not mine.”
And I turned my back on Muscles for the last time.
“Not mine.”
The Tarboy had worked quickly. I sat on a windowsill on the second floor of a grey apartment block and my legs hung out in the air.
I beat my heels against the wall and watched the rippling crowd of ferals drawing a fearful radius around the head. I could see it clearly from where I sat.
He’d stuck it on tall pole and it shone wet and bloody under the bright mid-morning sky.
It looked like it was still bleeding - a steady red stain grew across the cement.
Jesus had arrived with Junior in tow. They had hurriedly handed out a stack of blue meat and a makeshift guard formed alongside them. They stood in front of the head and he gestured to the crowd. His gestures were gently-punctuated by an honest, open palm.
Junior barked orders to the ferals. He had the pistol in his hand and it seemed obscenely cold and metallic beside the nudity of the Insect’s head.
Devotees pushed their way through the crowd, dragging individuals to face Jesus and throwing them at his feet.
I couldn’t read the selection process. It seemed random. They all looked the same from here.
I couldn’t pick Tarboy from the crowd. The Boss-Lady was only now arriving. She was flanked by three slaves on either side. The slaves were armed, though her hands were empty.
Junior saw the Boss-Lady before Jesus did. She walked straight past him and stood a few feet in front of Jesus. She gestured to her slaves without looking. They fanned out and faced the crowd - pulling the prostrate ferals to their feet and pushing them back into the crowd.
Jesus’ feral guard wavered and looked to him for guidance.
I slipped back inside and made my way out into the alley. The air seemed cold. Empty. The dry vibration of distance voices. I moved along behind the buildings and cut in when I got close to the crowd. The Tarboy sat on a cement block a hundred feet away, along the foot of the bordering apartments, watching the situation with no discernible feeling.
I pushed through the crowd. The tone was manic. There was an animal fear in the air. My heart beat hard and the air felt too thick. I breathed shallow and quickly and jammed three blues into my mouth.
The Boss-Lady’s doorman stood beside her. I gestured to him and he nodded, pulling me through the crowd and spreading out to make space for me. I looked along the line of guards. They looked strangely happy. It wasn’t sadism or megalomania… it was something else.
The strange joy of having purpose.
I spat into the crowd and drew a shiv in each hand. The air was hot and sour. A hundred black, gnashing mouths exhaled half-digested flesh.
I took a step backward and wedged myself beside the Boss-Lady. Junior’s face twisted and he raised the pistol to my stomach. I ignored the barrel - I pushed it to the periphery - and stared right into his face.
“Your jaw is looking good.”
The Boss-Lady dug her fingers into my waist and I turned to her with a smile. She widened her eyes and her voice wavered.
“This isn’t the time for it. This is too big for you.”
I winked and turned to Jesus. He looked at me without recognition, his eyes barely visible below his thick b
rows. Junior turned to him and said something I couldn’t hear. He turned away from me and frowned, examining the Boss-Lady.
Jesus spoke. His voice was rough but seemed carry through the noise of the crowd.
“We are here to spread justice. We will find the guilty person and we will judge them.”
The words sounded hollow, thin from repetition. The Boss-Lady shook her head and gestured to the crowd.
“The people are scared and hungry. They’re animals. They can’t be blamed for what they do. My sister knew what she was doing. It was her work with you that led to her death.”
Jesus closed his eyes and nodded. He kneaded his temples with thick fingers.
“Your sister was a murderess. She killed one of our own family earlier today and left him bleeding in the dust. She was just a feral with a better vocabulary.”
He paused and his expression softened.
“But I forgive her.”
I turned to Junior. He was staring at me - pistol still poised at my stomach. I blew him a soft kiss and winked. The Boss-Lady tensed beside me.
“You forgive her?! You forgive her?! What right do you have to forgive anybody!?”
I took a step closer to her and brushed my arm against hers. She was shaking and her muscles were hard and knotted.
There was a cry from the crowd and a pathetic-looking man was thrown out. He cowered on the cement at the Doorman’s feet. I turned from Junior and to the man.
He was old - his limbs were warped; thin brown skin stretched like a canvas over the bones. I walked to him and bent down, putting my hand on his shoulder. He cringed away from my touch.
“Relax, friend. I’m here to help.”
He looked up - his eyes were glazed and he showed no signs of understanding. His lips had been cut away years ago. His teeth chattered and his gums were inky black. I took him by the elbow and pulled him to his feet, cooing gentle reassurance in his ear.
I moved him in front of Jesus and jerked an accusing finger at them.
“Is this the sad thing you want to judge?”
Junior stepped forward and grabbed the man by the wrist, raising his voice to the crowd.
Blue Meat Blues Page 13