by CW Lynch
The windows were all covered with paper and boarded from the inside. The doors at either end of the building had new steel braces, new locks. No way in. Except the skylights. Dotted across the metal roof, they were too high up maybe for anyone to get to. Too high up to worry about. It had to be a forty foot drop, at least, from the lowest of them. A scary height, if you hadn't been raised in a big top.
"Need to get a closer look," muttered Magpye to himself, groping inside his coat. He pulled out a telescope and carefully unzipped and lifted his mask before putting it to his eye. The scope was old, another relic from the circus, but it did the job. The skylights were clear and through them he could make out a little of the layout inside the warehouse. Armed thugs roamed back and forth, nervous. Did they know he was coming? It didn't matter.
Slipping the telescope away, Magpye carefully zipped his mask back up. He checked the rest of his outfit as well. The coat, packed with all the little tools he'd amassed from the circus, sat over the tight mesh of Lycra and leather he'd stitched together himself. He checked it from head to toe, making sure every seam was closed, that no inch of his flesh was exposed. He had to be careful - it only took a droplet of blood, a gram of flesh to get inside him, in his bloodstream, and the unquiet ghost of whoever the blood and flesh belonged to would be his.
Their memories, their knowledge, their skills, all patch-worked onto his mind. The problem was, ghosts had a way of making you theirs too, and Magpye's head was full enough already.
The circus was one thing. At first, he'd only sought out the ones who had skills he could use. Acrobats, sharpshooters, knife throwers. It had been bad enough picking through what was left of their belongings, but searching for their blood, or their charred flesh, was something else entirely. He'd needed it, that had been the justification. He'd needed it. And he only needed a little - a dry blood stain, moistened by his pale tongue, was all it took. He'd needed it. But, after a while, he'd started to need them, too. His own memories were little more than fragments, and so he'd collected the minds and memories of others, hoping to piece together a little of who he was through them. Another justification, perhaps, but in the long days and nights as he'd scoured the ruins of the circus, hunting for each elusive splash of crimson that held the key to another soul, he'd convinced himself of it.
Thinking about it now, he realised that he was licking his lips underneath the mask. The hunger was always there. It wasn't the hunger for flesh or for blood, as necessary as those things now were for him to live. No, it was more than that. All the souls that he'd dug up, the unquiet spirits that now found themselves inside his head, it was their hunger that he felt. Their hunger for revenge on those that had wronged them, their hunger for retribution. Their own hunger for blood.
Magpye checked the seams on his outfit one last time, pulled the zipper on his mask tight. Quietening his mind, he waited for the ghosts to do their work. "We need to get across to that roof."
Unbidden, his hand reached down and took the loop of wire from his belt. He tied it around a metal hook dug from one of the pockets of his coat and tossed it across to the warehouse roof. Skittering across the metal for a moment, it found purchase and the wire tightened in his grasp. His hands moved again, pulling a second metal hook from his coat. This one was dug into the roof of the building he was standing on, deftly hooked under a piece of pipework that ran past his feet. Using all his strength, the wire was tightened, and tightened.
He'd collected all the skills he would need. Acrobats, sharpshooters, knife throwers... and high wire artists.
"Magda," said Magpye, and whatever small fragment of his mind that was Able Quirk surfaced for a moment to offer a rare memory. Magda the Magnificent, one half of the circus' high-wire act. Able remembered her making him a sandwich, and letting him watch her practice with her husband. Magpye hadn't been able to find any trace of him yet. Whatever had happened to him that night at the circus hadn't even left a stain behind.
Stepping onto the wire, Magpye slowly inched out across the gap between the buildings.
IT'S THAT EASY
Cane King watched through the limo window as the rusting iron and crumbling brick of the slaughter district gave way to the chrome and glass of the city proper. He'd travelled all over the world, built an empire across continents, but still this place was home. It was a city like no other, a place with a heartbeat and rhythm all of its own. Anything was possible here.
"Did you know that it's impossible to lie to me, Mr. King?" asked Taylor, interrupting King's train of thought.
"Is that so, Jack? I'll keep it in mind."
"I discovered it when I was eight years old. The doctor in the orphanage was telling me that I had a disassociative disorder, but I could tell he was lying. The truth was that he didn't know what was wrong with me."
"Is this going somewhere?"
"I knew then that what I had was something that nobody else had. I had clarity. Absolute clarity. I could see the truth in all things. I can see how they work, inside and out."
Cane leant forward and opened the mini bar. "That's pretty deep, Jack. Personally, I've never been one for poking around inside my own head too much."
"I know you were lying to them," Taylor continued. "About your plan. They couldn't see it, but I could. You're not sure it will work."
Cane sat back, a large drink in his hand. "You never cease to amaze me, Jack. Thank you for your candour."
"Am I wrong, Mr. King?"
King watched as Taylor's eyes, one blue, one green, zeroed out and focussed on the middle distance between them. Behind them, somewhere, Jack Taylor's mind, razor sharp and dark and bloody, was thinking, and planning, and calculating. King realised that he'd locked himself in a small metal box with probably the most dangerous man alive.
"No, Jack, you're not. That's why I've called in some outside help, someone who's worked for the family before."
"A specialist?"
"Something like that."
MAKING IT STICK
Ben Ryan hadn't started out a bad kid, but that's what everyone said. Well, not everyone. When he'd been in prison, he'd heard every hard luck story in the book. Most of the guys there were innocent, the rest were there because of someone or something else. Parents, wives, girlfriends, kids, booze, drugs. For Ryan it had been Iraq. Iraq had crept inside his head and come home with him. That's how he thought about it. Iraq wasn't a place, wasn't a time he'd lived through, wasn't even a memory. It was a thing, a living thing, like a parasite, that had latched onto him and wouldn't let go.
After all, he didn't have a family. He didn't have a wife, or a girl, or kids. He drank, sure, but no more than any other soldier, and drugs had never been his thing. So what was it that drove him to be here, on this night, finger nervously stroking the trigger-guard of an assault rifle, twitching at every little sound? How had he ended up as a god-damned Kingsman?
Guard duty wasn't the worst gig in the warehouse though. Piotr, a mountain of Russian muscle with a face like a slab, had to feed the kids. Ben had watched him prepping the food, stirring the giant rusty cans of low grade meat, pouring in the antibiotics, the hormones, the sedatives. Enough food to keep them alive, hormones to keep them small, antibiotics to keep them healthy. Sedatives to make them shut up. Ben had joked that Piotr should put it on the market, every mother in America would want the recipe. That had got him a black eye and trip to the dentist. After that, he'd steered clear of Piotr and the kids. He stuck to his route around the gantry way, checking windows, listening. A hundred or more kids at a time safe and sound underneath him, at least until the next truck came.
He didn't ask where they went. It didn't really matter. Not asking questions was one of the major job requirements if you wanted to last a long time as a Kingsman. Questions got you killed. Answers got you killed quicker. So Ben Ryan carried on being a good bad soldier and didn't ask questions.
He didn't ask questions when he heard the crash above him, he just raised his gun.
He di
dn't ask questions as the black shape came plummeting towards him, he just took aim.
He didn't ask questions as his gun fell forwards. He didn't ask questions as he felt the hot gush of his own blood splattering his thighs. He didn't ask questions as his gun and most of his right hand clattered to the floor. All he did was clutch at the mangled stump protruding from his wrist and scream.
The screaming stopped as Magpye landed on top of him, crushing his windpipe with the steel-reinforced heel of his boot. Ben Ryan's vision went dark and he realised, at the very end of his life, that he had a lot of questions after all.
Quickly un-clipping the trapeze wire from his belt, Magpye shook his line loose from the broken skylight above him. The other guards were already on their way, boots hammering on the gantry steps. Three in front of him, two behind. Another two downstairs, running in a different direction to the others. The ghosts sharpened Magpye's senses - the advantage of having more than one mind at a time was an almost endless surplus of concentration.
Magpye threw back his greatcoat and drew the twin pistols. From the bubbling soup of memory, Malcolm surfaced. "Trick shot time," said Magpye, unable to keep Malcolm's affected Texan accent at bay. "Yee-ha."
The first bullet tagged the front running guard in the shin, shattering the bone and bringing him down instantly. The second guard was so close behind that he tripped over the front runner, his own legs snarled up as the first guard howled and clasped his lower leg. His head snapped back as Magpye put a bullet through his throat.
Spinning around, Magpye raised his left hand and shot the first guard coming up behind him. The bullet smashed into the guard's eye, blowing out the back of his skull. Behind him, the second guard stopped to wipe blood and brain out of his eyes. Unbidden, Magpye swung the second pistol around and took another shot. The bullet hit the same spot on the first guard, travelling cleanly through the vacant and ruined eye socket and struck the guard behind in the forehead.
Turning again, Magpye saw the fifth guard drawing a bead on him.
"Take your shot," said Malcolm, moving the Magpye's lips underneath the mask.
The guard shot and, impossibly quickly, the Magpye moved. The bullet raced past and winged off the railing behind him.
"Shit..." whispered the guard, pulling the trigger again. Another shot, another miss, the Magpye's body twisting itself around the bullet.
"The thing with shooting somebody is," said Magpye, "You can't let them know where you're gonna put the bullet. And you're telegraphing, son. I know where you're shooting before you do."
"Fuck you, telegraph this!" shouted the guard, flicking the machine gun to full auto and pulling hard on the trigger. Shots rang out, one after another, a staccato rhythm of guttural grunts. Magpye twisted, ducked, spun, and twisted some more, dancing around the bullets as if they were paper aeroplanes. His hands slid back into his coat as he moved, smoothly holstering the pistols and pulling out a small blade in their place.
The final flourish of movement brought Magpye in close to the guard, just as his clip proclaimed itself empty with a sharp click.
"All yours, Able," whispered Malcolm, descending once more into the Magpye's mind.
Able Quirk shoved the blade into the guard's throat. It wasn't clean, or skilful, Able had never been a fighter, but it did the job. Sometimes the job was the reward too.
From somewhere downstairs Magpye heard splashing, and caught the tell-tale smell of gasoline. Fire. It was always fire. It always had to be fire. Fire was how the Magpye had been born, and it had followed him ever since. Leaping down the stairs, Magpye headed for the warehouse floor...
SPECIAL DELIVERY
Garrity slammed the van down a gear and ran the red light. On the passenger seat next to him, the bag shifted and festered and oozed. "Fucking King, fucking Taylor," he muttered, cutting through the traffic. "Fucking Jack, fucking psycho Taylor."
Garrity was dirty, he didn't deny it, but it wasn't how he saw himself. In this city, there was nothing more pedestrian than a dirty cop. Corruption was the norm, the standard. Garrity was far more than that. He was a survivalist, an animal adapted perfectly to this fetid city. He thrived here, while so many others failed. Even psychos like Taylor, Garrity had seen them come and go too. Most of the time, Garrity was the guy with the sack and shovel that got rid of the body. This city, this damned place, it attracted guys like Jack Taylor. Diseased moths drawn to crematorium flames.
And now Garrity had more dirty work to do. He had to deliver a message, a bag full of pieces of what had used to be a person, used to be a cop. Some message. It didn't sit right with Garrity, as dirty as he was. It wasn't the way things were done. People got hurt, sure, if they didn't follow the line, didn't do what was expected of them. People got killed too. But what was in that bag? That was new territory. That was a city opening up its rotten womb and spewing another Jack Taylor into the world. Garrity had put his share of killers away, Cane King's protection only extended to people who were killing on his orders, but he'd never seen anything like this. What was in that bag... that was what Jack Taylor did for fun.
A bus pulled out in front of Garrity, forcing him to stab the brake. The bag pitched forward, bumping off the dashboard. The underside was slick with blood, seeping through onto the seat next to Garrity.
"Fucking Taylor," he muttered.
Up ahead, the precinct house was lit up white and blue. There had been a time when those colours had meant a lot to Garrity.
The youngest of nine children, he'd learnt about survival the simple way - when there wasn't enough food at meal times, when there weren't enough clothes to keep everyone warm. When you were the smallest, the weakest, you learnt to be smart, you learnt to be fast, and you learnt that if you had dirt on the bigger kids... well, they weren't that much bigger after all. Garrity had learnt the subtle art of listening at doors, of being invisible in corridors and corners. A peep, a snitch, a snoop and, at times, a pervert, Garrity had learnt the value of secrets. It was his trick to surviving. He'd gotten out as soon as he could, left his family behind, and gone police at a time when it was the worst career option in the city. But he was good at listening, good at finding things out. He'd risen fast, got off the street and got his shield, all fast enough to attract the kind of attention that he'd wanted since his first day on the force. For a master of secrets, the big secret that was Cane King had been obvious for a very long time. And now Garrity wasn't the smallest anymore, far from it, but he still amassed those secrets. Cane King was tight lipped about his business, sure, but Garrity knew where the bodies were buried. Hell, most the time, he'd buried them.
The problem with King was, no one knew how far his power went. His money could make you mayor, his newspaper could see you stripped of office in a week. The political press called him "King the King-Maker", such was his power, his influence. Garrity wondered what secrets his boss had been privy to, over the years. There was no way anyone, anywhere, could think about turning state's evidence on Cane King. King had the cops, he had the judges. He had the mayor, everyone knew that, and he probably had the governor too. There was a joke that went around that when Cane King had shaken hands with the president, the caption in the newspaper had read "President meets most powerful man in America."
That was why Garrity knew the only safe place was right by King's side. Quiet, efficient, unquestioning and uncomplaining, utterly morally vacant. The perfect lieutenant. It has taken a lot of secrets learnt and shared for Garrity to rise to where he was today, and he wasn't going to let some psycho like Jack Taylor bring the whole house of cards down.
No, if Garrity was going to survive, he'd have to make sure King survived. Quietly, behind closed doors and in corners, he was going to need to run a little game of his own.
Ten yards from the precinct, Garrity reached over and opened up the passenger door of the van. With a grunt, he shoved the bag out, letting it bounce into the road. Palm jammed down on the horn, he gunned the engine and vanished into the night.
FIRE
The floor of the warehouse was bare, dominated by a large metal cage. Inside, barely conscious, were the children. Magpye couldn't count how many. Too many was the only number that made sense. He'd expected them to be filthy, dressed in rags, but they were all clothed in matching t-shirts and jeans and seemed clean. Someone here took care of the merchandise, Magpye supposed. They stared out of the cage with vacant eyes. They should have been afraid, but whatever they were drugged with kept them so insensate that even a man in a mask, splattered with blood, was not enough to rouse anything in them other than dumb curiosity. Magpye tore his eyes away from the strange, dead-eyed children. They would be White and Blind's problems soon enough.
Magpye had his own problems... Beneath his feet, pungent gasoline sloshed and at the other end of the warehouse floor there were six, maybe seven tanks of diesel fuel. Used to refuel the vans and run the generator, Magpye suspected. They had done the same at the circus. When you lived in caravans and tents, fuel was always important. It was also dangerous. One spark and the whole place would go up.
Two guards left, and it needed to be up close and personal. It was time for Dorothy.
When he'd been alive, Dorothy had been nearly seven feet tall, weighed over 300lbs, and had a bright red beard that fell past his naval. He'd been the circus' bearded lady, read a little tarot from time to time, but his main role was as the circus doctor. Injuries were a common occurrence and every circus had its own physician. Dorothy knew every bone in the human body and, since he'd been living in Magpye's head, he'd taken to breaking them.