Red bubbles collected on his lips. Both eyes were swollen. An unpleasant lump formed on his jaw. I think it was broken. Several teeth were missing. His lip had been split down to the chin, exposing raw gums.
I got to my feet, shakily. This wasn’t over. I grabbed him by the jacket and started hauling him towards the side of the building. He was painfully heavy to my weary limbs.
Distant sirens cut into my focus. During the combat, the roof was my world. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed. The outside world slowly materialised to my questing senses: the smell of burning rubble and charred flesh, gunshots and shrieks and the dull boom of grenades, and the cool slick of sweat under the night breeze. The stars were almost eclipsed by the light around me, but they shone dimly in the clear sky. I reached the parapet and hauled Strauch over the edge.
He spoke. “Don’t.”
I didn’t respond. My grip tightened on his jacket. I watched his arms for movement, but they hung uselessly.
“Let me live.”
I didn’t say anything, but a derisive huff escaped my lungs.
“Listen to me.”
I suspended him above a seventy-metre drop. All the protective armour in the world wouldn’t save him.
“Goodbye, Eric.”
“Don’t!”
That goddamn contraction.
It was so far distanced from anything I expected from Strauch. The glacier had melted; all that remained was sloshing water and sea scum. I screamed internally.
“One minute. Talk quickly.”
“Plea—”
“Fifty-eight.”
“Kill me… You have nothing… RailTech will hunt you… They will never let you go. Kill me…and you lose where Vincent was buried. You lose everything. Let me live, and I will always know that you beat me. I will not hunt you down. I will forget you exist.
“Kill me…and you lose any hope of finding the boy.”
The screams and the sirens faded again. I shivered, above and beyond what the cold wind called for. Existence now comprised of Strauch’s mutilated lips.
“Platinum blond. Deep tan. Blue eyes. I know who he is. Kill me, and you lose him. Forever.”
I felt dizzy, a heady feeling of vertigo consuming me. I might have swayed where I stood, but I have no way of knowing. Strauch could lead me to the boy. All I had to do was spare him. A thin rushing sound filled my ears, as if a colossal shell was being held to each one. I felt my heartbeat throughout my body: in my fingers, in my eyeballs, deep in my brain. The camera of my vision focused on Strauch’s lips, reducing everything else to a blur.
“Do not kill me.”
I thought of Valerie. ‘One more,’ she had said. I thought of Vincent. ‘No hard feelings’. Their faces rose from memory unbidden. I thought about that brief hollowness, the empty anger. I thought about the Helix—my home, destroyed beyond repair. Dante and Clarice: my new, tentative friends. Companions, maybe. The loyal army from the Midnight Hour. The grinning flesh that the world had discarded.
I thought about Vincent and Valerie again.
I let go.
Epilogue, Prologue (Epriologue?)
#0001
“This is my official audio statement, which will be given to the police shortly. I am K Fletcher. This statement is regarding the death of Michael Kriel. I am currently nineteen years of age. I study at the local university.
“Kriel knew me through a class at the university, basic forensics. I found his presence distasteful and did what I could to avoid it. He was more insistent than I expected, however. He accosted me as I was returning to my residence one night. He had something to show me, he claimed.
“I told him I didn’t have time and tried to move past him. He grabbed my wrist and tried to pull me somewhere, and I just...snapped. Suddenly, he had a knife in his hands, but I managed to turn it in and I stabbed him in the stomach. I stabbed him again, and again, and again.
“I stabbed him until the light went out in his eyes. Blood spurted everywhere. I was on the verge of a panic attack, so I took the weapon and ran. I wrapped anything that might have dripped in my coat so as to not leave a trail. I went home to make this recording.
“I feel... Oh god, K, pull yourself together. I feel... Alive? Alive. Alive for the first time. Something is burning in my veins, part-terror and part-elation. I took a life. Oh my god, I killed someone.
“I killed someone.
“I killed someone.
“All I can think of is doing it again. The rush, the scratch and scrabble of bodies. The adrenaline. I’m still shaking. God.
“I killed someone.
“I want to do it again.
“Fletcher. This is real. This rush, this pounding thrill. This is real. Nothing has felt this tangible before. Nothing. Tonight, Kriel may have died, but you found... Something. You found beauty.
“No, no, this won’t do. This won’t do at all. This is no longer a statement. This is a promise, an oath to Future K. Do not forget this. Do not forget your calling.
“This is it.”
Published in 2014 by Fox & Raven Publishing
2013/131615/07
Cape Town, South Africa
www.foxandraven.co.za
© 2014 David Horscroft
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.
ISBN: 978-0-9922341-2-6 (Print)
ISBN: 978-0-9922341-3-3 (eBook)
Cover designer: Joey Hi-fi
Proofreader: Nerine Dorman
Fletcher Page 24