Dispossession

by Chaz Brenchley

Slowly, slowly I stirred, I shifted on the hard flooring. I put one hand and then the other down flat, and leaned my weight forward till I was on all fours.

  And my arms and legs held me up, and I found no pain, only a terrible exhaustion. I lifted my head, and that didn’t hurt; I met him eye to eye, and that didn’t hurt; I took my weight all on the one hand and ran the other clumsily over my wet cheeks and running eyes, and even that didn’t hurt.

  Everything ached and tingled, but nothing worse. My tongue felt fat and awkward in my mouth, each of my teeth was separate and jittering and electric, but somehow I worked them all together to make his name, and a couple of slow and slurring words more.

  “Luke—thank you...”

  “Can you walk?” he asked.

  Big joke—and there was me, thinking all these years that he had no sense of humour...

  He’d learned to understand laughter, though, or some at least of its many meanings. I wheezed at him faintly, and his hands reached out to me again.

  Not to hurt this time, not to heal. I did flinch, though, I couldn’t help flinching. He ignored that and lifted me into his arms—like an adult a child, I thought, and thought I might resent that later; but then, isn’t all gratitude only an expression of resentment in different degrees?—and he stood up from his crouch with all my weight costing him no visible effort whatever. Why would it? His body was made of star-stuff less tired than our own; he tore steel with his fingers.

  Stooping, he stepped out through the hole he had made in the cabin’s wall. Strips of steel curled and hung down like apple-peel, where they hadn’t pulled and stretched like toffee.

  Outside was clear and cool. With my head drooped against his shoulder, looking up was easier than looking around. I saw stars like shards of shattered light, and my mind was half ready to float again. It was an effort not to, with my body safe at last and too numbingly tired to hold me.

  I frowned, and even that was a physical effort, took concentration to do it. I focused my eyes firmly on Luke’s and said, “What did you come back for?” Couldn’t have been for me, I was sure of that.

  And of course it wasn’t for me. “I didn’t leave,” he said. “There were trees I didn’t know. Over there, do you see?”

  No, I didn’t see. It was dark, and too much effort to squint, and my eyes weren’t Luke’s. Twenty-twenty vision only goes so far. But yes, I believed there could be trees he wouldn’t know: a park this grand, this old, whoever laid it out might have brought seeds or saplings from all over. And a new tree, yes, that could hold Luke here for days while he hugged it and loved it and learned it from root-tip to leaf-tip.

  Just as well, for me. It all came together—his tree-hugging, his eyesight to see me from wherever those trees were, his hearing perhaps to pick up the sounds of my pain at the same distance, and his deceptive, inhuman body. Plus a sense of unexpected drama in him, a yearning for the big effect, that he chose to rip through the wall rather than simply pull locked doors open; and some equally unexpected and possibly quite random impulse to generosity, that he’d chosen to come and help when there was no obvious reason for him to do so. I didn’t flatter myself that there was any tie of friendship that could draw him to my rescue purely on its own account.

  Which being the case, neither would he go to war on my account; but he was a formidable war engine, and the only weapon that I had...

  “I hope you enjoyed your trees, Luke,” I whispered. Didn’t have the strength to shout, but all right, he was hearing me.

  “Why?” He would expect a reason, of course, to shore up any such wish. Simple generosity of spirit he wouldn’t recognise, any more than I recognised it in him.

  And quite right, too. “Because they won’t be there much longer,” I told him.

  And had all his attention now: his stillness like a statue, his arms like stone beneath me, no giving flesh to cushion my weakness.

  “Why not?”

  “There’s a woman here, the one who had me locked up in there? She’s going to have all those trees cut down, to make room for another road across the park. That’s one of the reasons she was holding me, because I said I was going to tell you, I thought you ought to know. She’s the one who gave Dean his orders about that girl at Leavenhall, too. It’s never been Deverill, you can see he’s a tree-lover at heart...”

  Not what he would have heard, of course, if he’d been stretching his clever ears to hear us talking, Mrs Tuck and me; but that wouldn’t matter. Luke was a creature born of faith and destroyed by faith. Luke believed. He didn’t understand about lies, and he’d never spotted one in all his long, long life. He saw sweet and clear and exceedingly well, and that was enough; a very Cartesian angel, he knew that what he saw was true. He never thought to look below the surface, that something might be other than it seemed.

  And he was my friend, and so I used him.

  o0o

  And just in time, because there were voices suddenly in the night behind us, brief cries of surprise and running feet. Luke turned, and I twisted my head to see the same two men who’d spent such a happy time doing me over, coming at us fast. Behind them were others, pale faces in the dark, Deverill and Suzie and Mrs Tuck.

  Luke dropped me. I hit gravel, gasping; and rolled over the margin onto grass, not to be under their feet. For a moment it felt nothing but good to be lying on springy stems and soft earth, but I pushed myself up onto an elbow to cry a warning, “Don’t...!”

  Too late. Of course, too late; what else were they going to do, under their employer’s eyes? This was what they were paid for, after all, and they all too clearly enjoyed their job. They charged him; and even I could take no pleasure in their stupidity, though I’d suffered enough at their hands and feet. It seemed that I had no instinct for revenge or punishment, though I could draw little comfort from that just now.

  Not so Luke, as I knew too well. He wouldn’t punish them for hurting me, that was not his concern; but they stood in his way, and so he removed them.

  They hadn’t seen what his hands had done to corrugated steel. I don’t like to remember what those hands did casually, in passing, to those men; but perhaps I do after all have an instinct for self-punishment, because the images are painfully bright in my memory despite its other failings, despite the dark and my exhausted weakness and my tear-blurred reluctant eyes.

  Like anyone, these men had their favourite moves. The one had his baton, and swung it as soon as he was in range; the other let fly with a kick. Easy meat, they must have been thinking, if they were thinking at all.

  Me, I’d say they weren’t thinking. They’d seen Dean’s body, for God’s sake; they’d doubtless seen the video also, whatever of that grisly execution had been caught by the security camera. They surely should have recognised Luke.

  But they came on regardless, stick and kick and watch him fall down—only he didn’t. The kick cracked hard into his knee, and I knew just how that felt but Luke didn’t seem even to feel it. And the stick didn’t make contact with his head, where it was aimed. Luke flung out an arm and met it with the palm of his hand. The sound effects for that should have been the crunching of many small bones and a howl after, but all I heard was a grunt of surprise from the baton-wielder as Luke closed his unbreakable fingers around the shaft and tugged, wrenched it from the guy’s hand and sent it up, up and away with a whirl of his arm.

  For a moment then the two men stood and looked at him, in major reappraisal. They still had a chance, I guess. If they’d only had the nous to turn and run, he would have let them. They didn’t interest him. But something brought them on again, training or macho pride or simply fear for their jobs. Still two to one was in their heads, no doubt, and we can take him out, perhaps that too.

  They knew the moves to do it, and Luke was no fighter; but they didn’t know Luke. They closed on him from either side, consummate professionals, and the first swung another kick, aiming to sweep Luke’s legs from under him and get him down on the ground for some more fancy footwork.
But again he only stood there, something better than bone in his legs and wrapped around with matter that I knew too well could be very much harder than flesh.

  It was the kicking man who yelled, who hobbled a pace back and then fell. Broken shin, I thought, or broken ankle. The one still standing gave his mate a glance, total shock, I thought; and that would have been Luke’s chance to belt him one, only Luke still wasn’t interested. He just tried to walk straight through them.

  The standing one grabbed him round the neck. Big mistake: you can’t choke an angel. Luke looked at him, then reached up to grip him by the shoulders. Fingers that could puncture steel dug deep, and I swear that even through the man’s bubbling scream, even under their heavy coating of muscle I heard his shoulder blades crack and splinter.

  Luke tossed him aside then like something used and finished with.

  The man on the ground, though, he was still flailing, still trying to fight. Wrenching at Luke’s ankle, trying to topple him. Just instinct, it seemed, not knowing an end when he saw one.

  He’d never see another. Luke bent down, picked him up; held him above his head and hurled him down again, and then trod on his throat. The man spasmed, arched once and went limp. Luke didn’t even look back.

  He walked slowly and deliberately forward, and very much towards Mrs Tuck. She, no fool, was already moving sideways, heading for shelter, for the Portakabin.

  No fool, she was taking Suzie with her: gripping her by the wrist and dragging my reluctant, resisting wife. Suzie wasn’t fighting yet, but I thought she would, sooner than be hauled inside that particular steel cage by someone she hated and feared. Circumstances had changed now. She could see I wasn’t exactly their prisoner any longer, obedience wasn’t a prerequisite; yes, I thought, she’ll start fighting any second.

  Strangely looking forward to that, I was, despite it all. My wife the cat as spitfire, all claws and teeth and hissing: she’d get my money any day, over the plump contented evil of Mrs Tuck. Not so contented now, I hoped, seeing her nemesis stride so steadfastly toward her.

  But then she cheated, she changed the script. While one hand kept a grip on Suzie, the other delved into the handbag she carried slung over her shoulder.

  Delved, and came up with a small gun. It was too dark for me to see, but none the less I saw her thumb work the safety-catch, neat and efficient and meaning it. I saw her level that little widower-maker at my Suzie’s head, and no, Suzie would not be fighting now. She’d just been given another reason to be sensible.

  As had I; but not Luke. What did he care for hostages? I sat up dizzyingly quick and screamed at him, “Luke, no! Stand still, don’t go any closer, for God’s sake...!”

  He jerked slightly, but that was just at the word. He always flinched from any name of God, even from me who had no faith to back it. But then, when my doom-seeing soul expected him only to start walking again, he startled me by doing what I’d told him to do, standing still and going no closer. Mrs Tuck nodded her satisfaction, pushed Suzie against the Portakabin wall—this the untorn side, they wouldn’t have seen the damage—and gestured with the gun, stand still, girl, while she reached into her bag again and came up with keys.

  Luke, meanwhile, had turned his head to find me. “Why?” he asked simply.

  Why. Right. Okay, explain compassion, desperation, love to a creature with no soul and entirely lacking in empathy. Do it now, do it in a sentence...

  Couldn’t. I watched Mrs Tuck unlock the cabin door and thrust Suzie inside, and said, “Because she’ll kill her if you go in after them.”

  He weighed that in the cold, accurate balance of his own judgement, and visibly found it wanting. Didn’t speak to me again, only turned and walked toward the cabin.

  “Luke, no!”

  This time, he didn’t so much as look back.

  I saw Deverill take half a pace forward, presumably also wanting to stop Luke but for reasons entirely opposite to mine. Only his path to Luke would lead him past his men, dead or unconscious on the ground, and I saw him check, consider, decide against. Wise man, he stayed where he was.

  Not me, I couldn’t do that. Not my man in danger: my woman, my wife, partner and lover and what more I needed time to find. So I thrust myself awkward and ungainly to my feet, and went staggering towards the cabin just as Luke reached it and stepped inside.

  The door slammed, and I thought it was slamming on all my hopes. I ran, though I was in no state for running; and arrived at that door only a couple of seconds behind Luke, only a couple of seconds too late.

  I grabbed the handle, but it wouldn’t turn. Locked or jammed or broken: I shook it desperately, pounded with my fists, and the whole cabin rocked.

  I did it again, and it happened again, and it took my dull mind a while to catch up with what was happening beneath my hands. Then, gaping, I laid a palm flat against the door with no pressure. The cabin tilted ten, twenty degrees out of true, and crashed to ground again.

  I stepped back, stunned and shaking. Before I could think to run around to the other side where the hole was in the wall, I saw one end rise a metre or so; and then the whole cabin went on rising at that angle, snapped free of its power lines so that all the lights in the windows went out at once, was lifted up like a shoebox toy in the unseen hand of a child.

  How’d you get it up here? I’d asked, about Luke’s new caravan.

  I lifted it, he’d said.

  And I’d wondered at the time what that had meant, and now I knew. Luke hates to fly, but when he must the air will bear him up; and his environment also, apparently. Anything he chose to take with him.

  This was no easy, smooth ascension, going up nice and steady like a lift. The cabin jerked and swung and seemed to dangle from shifting, immaterial cables, so that anyone inside must be tumbling like dolls. Broken dolls, I was afraid. Not good territory for shooting, of course, I thought perhaps I needn’t worry any longer about that; but not good for staying whole and undamaged either. Very likely not so hot for staying alive.

  Sometimes as it tilted and turned, I caught a glimpse of Luke’s dark hole where the wall was ripped open, and had visions of Suzie falling free. Nightmare visions, those: gone too high, she’d never survive such a fall.

  But a fall was all there was in prospect now. What other way down? This wasn’t an aircraft Luke had made, to fly unwilling guests back to his mountain in the Lakes. At least I guessed not, though in all honesty I couldn’t be sure. I’d known him long enough not even to venture to read his mind. If that happened between us, it was strictly one-way traffic.

  Up and up it went, till I was straining to see. Deverill was beside me now, both of us twisting our necks and squinting into the sky. He’d lost his anger, in the stunning bewilderment of the moment; he said, “Jonty? What the hell is happening here?”

  “Later,” I grunted. Two stories I had to tell him, one of Luke and one of Mrs Tuck, and he wasn’t going to like either one of them; but right now neither one concerned me in the least. Luke had Suzie up there too, and I cared for nothing and no one else.

  And was totally helpless down here, could do nothing but stand and try to watch, not to be defeated by the night. I was seeing more by the absence of light now, how the cabin’s shadow occluded the stars. Not so good, that, but good enough at least to show me one thing. I could tell quite clearly when the cabin stopped going up, and started coming down.

  I could see the difference, too: that it had gone up lifted, awkward and effortful, and it was coming down freefall.

  o0o

  “Jesus, look out!” That was Deverill, his eyes a little older or his mind a little slower, lagging half a second behind mine.

  “It’s all right,” I said dully, though it wasn’t. “Not going to land on us.”

  Nor did it. Its erratic path into the air had taken it some little way askance from us, so that it crashed into the stable yard, or else into the stables. There was a high wall between it and us, I couldn’t see.

  Appalling loss s
tung at my eyes, I couldn’t see.

  Until he shook me, until Deverill’s big hand closed on my shoulder and shook me hard, and I could vaguely see his other arm pointing.

  Pointing up.

  Then I dashed the back of my hand across my eyes, turned my aching neck up again, and peered into the star-sharp black of the sky. And saw a misshapen figure coming down, nice and slow and easy. Walking almost on the wind, finding it solid enough.

  I thought I was seeing awry, not slender graceful Luke could look like that. Not until he was almost on the ground did I make out truly what I was seeing, my long-time angel with my new love wrapped around him and clinging tight.

  Luke hates to fly, but when he must—no, when he chooses...

  o0o

  He touched down like a dancer, and opened his arms like a man with a gift to present. Suzie broke free of him the instant that she could and came weaving uncertainly towards me, her feet hesitant on solid ground.

  I ran to her and wrapped my own arms around her, half expecting to be rejected as Luke had been, no man’s touch welcome to her just now. Her hands gripped my jacket, her face lifted and her eyes found mine. There were tears on her cheeks, I saw, and I wanted to kiss them away. She opened her mouth and whispered, “Sorry...”

  I shook my head in denial, and simply kissed her sweat-sodden hair instead of her wet cheeks as she was violently, stinkingly sick all over me.

  Codetta: Philoxenia Renewed

  Not the formal rooms, these, downstairs in the big house. Deverill had brought us to his own private suite to get clean, to get as comfortable as we could manage, and then to explain.

  There was no comfort in it, except the purely physical; but for me at least, for the moment at least, that was enough. Suzie and I shared the luxuries of his marbled bathroom with its gushing gold dolphin taps and fur rugs on the floor, and took our time in doing it. I offered her the choice, bath or shower, and she said, “Bath. And you, too.” So we shared that also, a long soak in a deep tub and each of us soaping the other’s trembling body with expensive unguents, me fussing over her cuts and bruises, she surprised to find none on me: “I thought they were giving you a bad time, something he said, I was so afraid for you...”