by CW Lynch
Able picked his away through the corpse of the circus, heading for the entrance to the mausoleum. Hopefully Marissa was cooking. He needed food, or what passed for food for Able these days, and sleep. Tomorrow, he would wake up as Able Quirk and begin again.
In his head, his ghosts were sullen and silent. It was understandable. They were no longer safe in Able's head. They were no longer permanent. They had all seen first hand that they could be evicted, exorcised by the power of the Magpye at Able's command. Able could sense their fear. They were no longer survivors, escaping death in Able's head. They were prisoners, and they were trapped there.
When Able reached the hidden door, he found it open. It was never left open.
He rushed in and down, taking the steps two at a time.
"Marv! Marissa!"
There was no answer.
Able called forth his ghosts, no longer caring about their fears or worries. Each and every one responded, and innumerable eyes scanned the room. The group-think of the Magpye took over.
"Blood here, on the steps."
"More, further up."
"Broken crockery, signs of a confrontation."
"The old man put up a fight then."
"Doesn't sound like Marv."
Able took control again as his eyes hit a piece of paper pinned to the table. It was a newspaper clipping, the front page of one of the papers that King controlled. Stretching from the top of the page to the bottom was an image of Cane's new casino hotel.
"They took him," muttered Able, screwing up the paper and throwing it on the ground. It was happening again. People in his life were getting caught in the crossfire between him and the Kings. Marv was the closest thing to a real father that Able had, despite everything that had happened, and now he was at the mercy of Cane King.
"It's a trap, you realise that don't you?"
It was the hyper-organised mind of Rosa Blind, the eternal analyst, that spoke to Able.
"Cane will have that place filled with guys on his payroll and surrounded by cops that he owns too. The only way you are getting in there is how and when and where they want you to."
"What would you have me do?" asked Able. "I won't abandon him."
"He abandoned us, remember?" said Malcolm. It was unlike the trick shot marksman to get involved in anything that didn't involve a bullet, and Able would never have pegged him for someone to back away from a fight.
"We're not discussing this," said Able. "This is Marv. I'd still be out of my mind, running around graveyards in the night if it wasn't for him. We'd all still be at the bottom of that pit. He saved me, and he saved us."
"He saved himself," interjected Dorothy. "He ran out on us and we died, or did you forget that? He's as much to blame as Adam was."
"I said we're not discussing this," said Able forcefully. "Marv's one of us, so we go to get him or…"
"Or what?" asked Dorothy pointedly. "Or we end up as some abortion in the bottom of the pit? Is that how it is now? What happened to not wanting to rule over us, Able?"
The phantoms in Able's head began to push and jostle against each other to speak and Able's head filled with incomprehensible white noise. He closed them out, let them argue and rage amongst themselves for a moment as he composed his thoughts. As the clamour of the dead subsided, Able spoke again.
"I'm sorry, Dorothy. I'm sorry for what I made you do, for what I made you a part of."
Able felt the temper of the ghosts soften, if only a little.
"But while Adam was a part of us, none of us were safe. He was a poison. A parasite."
"So it's one down, one to go eh?" The voice belonged to Terry Cooper. He'd been a quiet ghost until now. A simmering, boiling presence just beneath the surface, a pressure to act, a pressure to move against the Kings that had been held in check by the other spirits. It seemed he waited for this moment. "That's fine by me."
"Me too," said Malcolm.
Dorothy fell silent. "Looks like I'm the only one who's seen enough blood."
"I've seen more than enough, Dorothy," said Able. "More than enough. But we need to keep going. For everyone we've lost, for everything we've lost. For the people we can still save."
"None of this gives us a way in," said Rosa. All business, she pulled the focus of the ghosts with her, the rigour and control of her mind almost magnetic to them, and antidote to the chaos of mixed memories that they otherwise found themselves in.
"Well, that depends on who you ask, miss."
The voice that had finally found its way to the fore was the last one that Able expected. Zip Nolan. The human cannonball and Able's bolt-hole psyche to hide inside.
"I think I've got a plan."
THE BLIMP
From above, the city looked like the milky way. A sprinkling of stars at the outskirts, tiny lights against inky blackness, growing denser until the suburbs gave way to the burning galaxy heart of the city itself. The docks were a smoky nebula that clung to the fringes, and dark tracts of industrial buildings that lay dormant punctuated the star-scape with black holes and dark shards of the unknown.
From above, there were no screams. No sirens. No death. Just the serene lights, fighting their silent war against the darkness.
"It's beautiful," said Able. "I never thought it could be."
"Perspective," replied Nolan, the Irishman's voice clear in Able's head. "It's what flying gives you. The world looks a lot different from up here. Simpler. Cleaner."
"I can understand why you love it so much up here."
Able could feel his hands moving across the controls of the airship, but the movements were all Nolan's. Able had always had an affinity with Nolan, an ability to immerse himself completely in the Irish aerialist’s mind and lose himself there completely. The Zen calmness of Nolan was a balm to Able's tortured, fractured mind.
He felt the Irishman's supreme confidence in control of the ship. Nolan knew, and so Able knew, every single nut and bolt in the thing. It had been their great project together, to make the old relic fly again, and now here they were. The thing flew and it was majestic. More than that, it was symbolic; something of the circus rising again to cast its shadow over the city. The airship would have been, should have been, the jewel in the circus' crown. But instead it had become another ghost, an undead leviathan come to haunt the sky, and the victory that Able and Nolan should have shared was tainted because of it.
Able watched as Nolan's hands moved again across the controls, pulling levers and adjusting switches, adjusting the airship's flight through the inky black sky. The engines spluttered and coughed, but somehow the beast stayed airborne. The thing pulled itself upwards and the scattered stars of the city vanished underneath grey clouds.
"Zip," asked Able, "How the hell are we going to land this thing when we get there?"
The Irish ghost chuckled. "You remember Mikey?" he asked.
"Of course," replied Able. Of all of the guilt that he carried around with him, the guilt that he felt for passing the pain of his healing in the pit on to Mikey Bumch was especially painful and poisonous. He hadn't felt the clown's mind again since that night and whilst he believed it was possible that he had simply vanished back into the waters of memory from which he had sprung, Able wondered in his darkest moments if the clown was still being tortured by that pain somewhere. He had called for the dead clown's spirit several times, but to no avail. He had been too cowardly to forcibly summon the clown's spirit, for fear of the worst. For all Able knew, Mikey Bumch had truly found a fate worse than death.
"Well, after what Mikey did for you, he found a a way out."
Able felt a prickle down his spine; the creature, Magpye, stirring. Whatever Nolan knew had gotten the dark thing's attention as well.
"What do you mean, a way out?"
"I knew Mikey better than most of the others," continued Nolan. "He was a lot like me. The revenge, the hate, all the bloodshed… it wasn't really for him. In a lot of ways he was happier dead. I got that. My old act, any night could ha
ve been my last. Death was something I came to terms with quickly. The guy who trained me, back in the day... He said the best way to avoid death was never to fear the bony bastard. The point is, it's cramped in here, Able, and like souls tend to stick together. We share our memories, share our space. We share ourselves."
Able felt a sadness from Nolan, something he'd never sensed before. A break in the dam that held back Nolan's emotions, a tiny trickle of what might lay behind the calm that Able had come to value so much. He'd never taken the time to wonder what the ghosts did when they sank down to the places where he couldn't reach them. He'd supposed that it would be something like sleep, a dream at most, but perhaps not. Zip Nolan and Mikey Bumch had continued their friendship into the afterlife, and Able realised that that meant that Zip had lost another friend because of him.
Another loss, another death. Another for Able's tally of guilt.
"I'm sorry, Zip."
"Don't be," replied Nolan. "What Mikey did for you? He told me that it made him feel complete. He'd never felt a single thing in his whole life, can you imagine that? Well, that fucking thing that lives inside all of us now, that god-damned bird… it made sure he felt what he took from you. Funny thing was, Mikey didn't mind. After a lifetime of nothing, agony had a sweetness for him. That's what he said."
"How long did it last?" asked Able.
"Hard to be sure," replied Nolan. "Time is different for us than it is for you. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. I won't lie to you, Able, it was a long time. It was a very long time, at least for Mikey. But, at the end of it, he was happy. He said that it had made sense of everything that had gone before, of every shitty thing that had ever happened to him. Every bad day he'd ever had had been to bring him to that moment, to help you, and to save us all from the pit. He said he'd done what he was supposed to do, and that was the last any of us saw of him."
Able felt the Magpye, spiteful and vengeful creature that it was, twist and turn with anger inside of him. Able had never wanted to claim dominion over the ghosts, but the creature did. The creature believed that they belonged to it.
"So there's another way…" said Able. He couldn't help but smile. "You're not trapped, any of you?"
"All we have to do is figure out why we're here," said Nolan. "At least, that's my theory. I mean, that's what people always used to say about ghosts right? That we're dead people with unfinished business?"
"Unfinished business," repeated Able. "Well, we've certainly got plenty of that."
He felt a ripple of acknowledge from the other ghosts. Wherever they were as he communed with Nolan, they could sense what was happening. The waters that Able pictured in his mind, calm whilst he was joined with Zip, began to froth and bubble again as they once had. Noisy spirits, vengeful spirits, and a dark form underneath it all; the dark shape of a bird, lurking in the deepest and most treacherous waters.
"But none of this tells me how we're going to land this thing," said Able.
Able snapped back to reality for a moment as Nolan's mind guided his hands across the controls once more. Looking out through the wide glass windows, the city was alive with light beneath them. Taller than anything else, a ziggurat of neon and gold, stood Cane King's hotel. The sight of it disgusted Able. It was as if Cane had been able to finally tattoo his name onto the city itself, to carve his image onto it.
The nose of the airship dipped and the old engines gave out an angry screech.
"Haven't you figured that out yet?" said Nolan's ghost. There was laughter in the ghost's voice. "While all the others have been arguing and fighting and raging, I've been doing what I always did best. I've been preparing. I've been getting ready to look the old bony bastard in the eye for a second time around, and this time... I'm not going to blink."
Able watched as his hands reached out, took hold of the two main control levers for the airship, and rammed them forwards. The engines roared and the great beast pitched forward.
"I've figured out what I'm here for, kid," said the ghost. "I'm The Amazing Zip Nolan, the human cannonball, the man who can fly. I'm going to do what I was born to do... I'm going to bring the house down."
SCREAMING, BURNING, AND SIRENS
Harvey had one last drag on his cigarette before tossing it off the edge of the roof. It spiralled out through the night, its glow lost in the glaring neon lights blazing out of the casino. He checked his gun again before tapping another cigarette out of the packet and lighting it. He'd heard the stories, everyone had, and so everyone knew that the freak liked to come in through the roof. Getting posted up here with his boys by Taylor was a death sentence. Harvey knew it, his boys knew it. They'd been marked the minute Cassidy opened his big, god-damned mouth. The idiot had gotten off easy with a bullet between the eyes.
Now all that was left of Cassidy's gang was Harvey and this bunch of kids.
"This is going to be different boys," said Harvey, raising his voice against the wind. "We're going to show them all what we can do. We'll kill this freak the minute he shows his fucking face and we'll be the big names in this city, just you wait and see."
Nobody answered. They were cannon fodder. Maybe Harvey was the only one dumb enough not to believe it.
He started to walk the perimeter of the roof again. Wide and flat, the only structure that could provide any cover was the little brick build access to the building below. Plenty of space, but not many places to hide. Plus, the casino was taller than anything else around it. Harvey had thought it all through. No way was the freak coming in on the roof this time, not without being seen.
"All we gotta do is see him coming," he shouted, doing his best to rally his meagre troops again. "Just keep your eyes open and the minute you see him you raise hell and you let him have it, you hear me? He's gotta come through us, and the bastard can't fly!"
"Hey, Harv? Harvey?!"
Harv's heart skipped a beat and he almost dropped his gun as he spun in the direction of the voice.
"What? What?!"
The kid was silhouetted against a neon light that jutted up over the lip of the roof, but Harvey could see that he was pointing up. He turned again, fast, bringing up his gun, ready to fire.
"What… the… fuck?"
Inside the airship, all Able could hear was the scream of the engines and Zip Nolan laughing.
"You're kill us!" shouted Able.
Nolan's hands moved again across the controls. Now, they fought back against him, the old airship locked on a course it didn't have the power to change.
"You'll live," said Nolan. "You're getting out."
An image of a parachute, packed and ready for use, popped into Able's mind.
"When did you?"
"All that time you used to let me drive?" said Nolan. "I've had plenty of time to prepare."
"I'm not a parachutist," said Able.
"No, but I am, and I'm sure Magda can help you out if I'm already… you know."
"Gone," said Able. He hadn't had time to think about what his mind would be like without the calming influence of Zip Nolan in it, or what he would do without Nolan to retreat into from time to time.
The airship tipped further forward, the floor now pitching away from Able's feet.
"There are hand holds in the floor," said Nolan. "Time to start climbing!"
Able crouched down on the floor and found the first hand holds. Just in time, he fasten his grip on one as, with a final scream, the airship began to nose dive. Hand over hand, Able began to climb up the floor, away from the windows and towards the rear of the ship.
"You won't need to go all the way, just make it to the third set of doors. We'll be able to jump and clear the main part of the hull there."
Grunting with exertion, Able pulled himself upwards. There was a pressure building inside the cabin as the iron seams started to buckle under the strain of the ship's forced descent.
"This is crazy, Zip," said Able. "We could kill Marv, we could kill everybody."
"Don't worry," laughed the ghost.
"I've got this all planned. Just get to the door."
Down on the roof, Harvey fumbled with the radio that Taylor had given him as he pitched through the door back into the casino. Taylor had said that if Harvey abandoned the roof he was dead but, right now, he was prepared to take his chances.
"Taylor! Taylor can you hear me?"
"Yes."
"It's a fucking blimp! The crazy bastard is going to crash a blimp into us!"
"Understood."
"Understood? Understood?! What the hell do you mean under-"
Able pulled the heavy iron lever that held the door shut and dodged out of its way as it toppled inwards. Wind rushed through the cabin and the windows at the front of the airship shattered as the nose started to crumple. Able reached to the wall and unhooked the parachute, strapping it over his arms one at a time, dangling from whichever was his free hand. He let Nolan and Magda do the work, their combined expertise and balance keeping him alive.
With one final look down through the shattered window at the rapidly approaching rooftops, Able pulled his legs up and mounted the lip of the door frame.
Without a second thought, he kicked away and sent himself out into mid-air.
Behind him, the airship frame rushed past, meter after meter of iron and leather and steel. He tumbled through the air, Nolan's voice counting calmly in his head. It was Able's hand, unguided, that held on tight to the parachute rip cord.
"Hold on kid!" shouted Nolan, as the tapering end of the airship rushed past them.
Together, Able and Nolan pulled the rip cord.
The airship hit the roof of the casino on the far side, the underside of the cabin tearing through the roof and down into the floors below. Metal screeched against metal as the two giants, the airship and the fortress, battled with each other, two titans locked in mortal combat. Sparks flew up from exposed electrics, igniting the rupturing fuel tanks of the airship. The explosion tore the main body of the ship in two, sending the bulbous nose cone off the edge of the roof and tossing the rear up into the air.