Clipped Wings

by J. P. Rice

  His arm whipped forward like he was throwing a bowling bowl. His claws raked upward over the man’s belly and chest and a fountain of red liquid sprang from the fresh wounds. The staggering man looked down to assess the damage. As he lowered his head, Jonathan retracted the killer claws and clenched his fist.

  Jonathan threw a right hook that landed right under the man’s ear and resulted in an eerie thud. The man’s lower jaw suddenly hung lower as if it had become unhinged. Jonathan extracted his silver claws again and buried them into the man’s chest.

  Mesmerized by Jonathan’s moves, I’d almost forgotten I had a job to do and glanced back at the driveway. Still nobody. Back to the action. Roydell and Timson were struggling with their opponents. I wondered if they were fully healed from the bullet sandwich Glenda had fed them not too long ago.

  A werewolf emerged from behind a tree trunk. He and two other wolves circled around Jonathan, effectively surrounding him. I thought the vampire could use some help until a streak out of my peripheral vision grabbed my attention. The lawyer was making a break for it. He jumped over a small pile of split logs and took off for the hill.

  I pulled my finger away from the trigger and chased the lawyer. Draped in a three-piece suit and leather dress shoes, the lawyer wasn’t breaking any speed records. He trampled down the steep incline next to his driveway. I caught up quickly and closed in on him.

  Using an old grade school move, I kicked his foot behind his other leg and he fell and rolled down the hill, finally coming to a harsh stop and groaning in pain. He tried to jump back up, but I acted fast and hooked my arm around his neck from behind.

  I laid the end of the barrel up to the side of his bloody head. There were still bits of glass strewn through his dark, shaggy hair. “Where do you think you’re going?” I asked in a husky voice, trying to sound threatening. Acting crazy seemed like a good plan to get quick answers.

  “This is all just a misunderstanding,” he pleaded, his stuttering words drenched in fear for his life.

  “Misunderstanding or not, I was told I could kill someone. Sorry.” I pushed the barrel harder against his head to let him know I meant business.

  The lawyer’s arms shook uncontrollably, and he wailed, “Wait. Wait. Wait. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  “Pass. I’d rather kill you,” I shifted my tone to speak in a creepy voice.

  “Jonathan. Get this maniac away from me,” he moaned on the verge of tears.

  I looked straight up at the sky, still holding the barrel to his temple, and yelled, “Sorry Jonathan, I’ma kill this fucker.” I leaned closer to his ear, tightened my hold around his neck and whispered, “Looks like you’re all alone. Nobody to save you.”

  “Jonathan. I’ll tell you where it is,” the lawyer said, almost gurgling from the choke hold. I watched the first few tears run off his cheeks and fall harmlessly to the ground.

  “Don’t stop there. Keep talking.”

  The lawyer whimpered, “I need to know you won’t kill me. Jonathan has to promise me.”

  “I’m getting bored.” I aimed the sights at the top of Mathias’ Italian leather shoe. I wasn’t allowed to kill anyone, but I could inflict some pain.

  BOOM!

  The lawyer cried out in pain. “You son of a bitch. Why’d you do that?” He leaned heavily and unsteadily to his left to get the weight off the injury and almost pulled me down.

  I planted my right foot firmly and tightened my grip around his neck. Holding him upright, I whispered, “I don’t like to wait. Start talking.”

  “You fucking crazy...” He bit his tongue momentarily. Crying and hobbling, he gathered his thoughts, and between sobs, he asked, “What can I say?”

  I increased the pressure around his neck and pressed the barrel against his cheek. “Now that you know I’m serious, tell us what we want to hear, sweetheart.”

  The lawyer shouted a garbled mess of words, “I sold it to the Larimores. All right. Are you fucking happy?”

  “Nope,” I said and lowered the gun to his other foot.

  Mathias’ eyes followed the weapon as I aimed it and started whistling. He screamed, “What the fuck are you doing? I just told you who has it.”

  “I don’t believe you. And I really like shooting people.” I waved the gun up and down his body.

  He pleaded, “Ask Jonathan. He’ll tell you.”

  “Hey Jonathan, does the name Larimores sound right?” I yelled casually up the hill.

  The vampire screamed back, out of breath, “Yes. Makes sense.”

  I asked, “Can I kill this guy since we don’t need him anymore?” I traced the barrel up his side and eventually let it rest against his temple. As I rubbed my pointer finger gently against the trigger, four-gun shots rang out.

  I looked at my hand in disbelief, but it wasn’t my weapon that had discharged. Oh shit. Shifting the gun around in my hand, I removed my finger from the trigger and pistol-whipped Mathias on the head, knocking him out. I charged back up the mountain and saw Roydell lying on the ground, four bullet holes in his smoking chest.

  Behind the felled vampire were Jonathan and Timson standing with their hands in the air. The final remaining guard had a big Colt .45 in his extended hand. Why weren’t the vampires attacking? They couldn’t die from normal gunshots, which led me to believe that this guy was using silver bullets dipped in holy water.

  The man didn’t hear or see me, so I took aim. I exhaled and held the pistol so that my body would be completely still. Closing one eye and staring through the sights, my steady hand squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet tore through the air and hit the gunman’s wrist. He screamed in agony and the gun slipped from his hand, fluttered in the air and eventually landed on the ground. I ran over to Jonathan and Timson as the wolf writhed in pain, holding his bloody wrist.

  Jonathan announced, “We need to get out of here in case they called in back up help. Mike, have you killed the other guards from the driveway?”

  Was he crazy? He knew I couldn’t just mow people down. I said, “No. They haven’t been anywhere to be seen.”

  Jonathan nodded confidently, mischief racing through his eyes. “That probably means they went to round up the posse. Let’s go.” He pointed to the getaway vehicle.

  The two vampires started to walk to the Jeep. I pointed and asked, “What about Roydell?”

  Jonathan glanced at his fallen comrade, shrugged his shoulders and said, “He’s dead. You can take him if you want, but it will take too much time to drag him over.”

  It seemed wrong to leave the body there even if Roydell was an asshole. And I wondered how they knew he was dead. Reg’s body hadn’t moved in weeks, yet he was still alive somehow. I didn’t have time to dwell on this now and rushed over to the vehicle.

  As I put my foot on the step bar, bullets echoed in the winter air, whizzing past my head and plastering the side of the house. As my heart trembled with the anticipation of more shots, I spring boarded up into the raised Jeep and dove into the backseat. Jonathan was already behind the wheel and Timson jumped into the passenger’s seat.

  Jonathan started the car, revved the engine and turned around. He ran over two of the guards’ bodies as we drove through Mathias’ lawn. Bullets clanged off the vehicle, and when we turned around, two men with guns were standing at the top of the driveway.

  Jonathan chuckled and jammed down the gas. My head whipped back, and I grabbed the support bar. The gunmen kept firing as bullets ricocheted off the vehicle that was gaining speed and bearing down on them. The men maintained the onslaught, showering the front of the Jeep with a storm of bullets and holding their ground impressively.

  Until the final moment when they dived out of the way. One broke to the right and the other darted to the left, barely avoiding getting smashed. Our speed launched us in the air and it felt like we were levitating momentarily until we dropped like a rock, landed harshly and almost flipped over. The Jeep rocked back and forth, and the thought of it flippi
ng chilled my soul. We would be in serious trouble if we lost our vehicle now.

  Bullets pinged off the vehicle again as we rocked to a stop, still upright. Jonathan calmly got us back onto the driveway. With the bulletproof protection, it seemed like the struggle was all over so I leaned back in the seat, muscles still tensed from the action. That was a different brawl than I was used to.

  “Oh shit,” Jonathan remarked with worry glued to the words.

  I shot up in the seat, leaned to my left and looked through the windshield. There were two trucks racing up the winding driveway, essentially blocking our exit.

  “You want to fucking play?” Jonathan said and used his right hand to shift into Four Wheel Low. He jerked the wheel to the right and we jumped up over the side of the driveway and into the grass.

  I could still hear gunshots, but none of the bullets were hitting our vehicle. We bounced down the grass hillside with the Jeep rocking back and forth. Now I knew why Jonathan had insisted on taking this vehicle. Smart man.

  After a rocky downhill descent that jarred my brain and internal body parts, we hit the paved road and Jonathan pressed down on the gas. The two trucks also took the rough ride down the hillside and they pulled out onto the street about fifty yards behind us.

  We drove for about fifteen minutes with them on our tail and came to one of the main roads in King’s Mountain. It didn’t make me feel that much safer, but the public golf course on either side of the road seemed like we were in a suburb. But it was winter and nobody would be using the course.

  “Hold on to your asses,” Jonathan warned and jerked the wheel to the left.

  Chapter 15

  We crossed the other lane, ran over the raised curb and sailed onto the King’s Mountain Golf Course. The two trucks followed suit and all three vehicles started to tear up the beautiful course. Green grass from the fairways fountained up in the air, leaving trails of muddy tire tracks all over the course.

  Emboldened from being off the main road, the gunshots from the trucks started again.

  “Give me that pistol,” demanded Timson, his pale hand reaching behind his seat. I laid the black gun in his palm and he struggled to get it through the small opening between the seat and the door.

  With gun in hand, Timson lowered his window. He turned around in his seat so that he could look out the back window. He stuck the gun out the window and fired. The windshield on the truck directly behind us shattered and the car swerved severely.

  Headed for a birch tree, the driver tried to turn the truck, but the moist ground wouldn’t cooperate. The black vehicle skidded and the front passenger quarter panel smashed into the tree. Splintered wood exploded from the impact and smoke poured out of the hood.

  The other truck pulled up on our tail, bravely dodging the bullets from Timson’s gun. We drove around the empty golf course, trying to escape, but utterly destroying the landscaping in the process. I couldn’t even dare to estimate how much damage we’d caused already.

  Jonathan said, “Stop firing for a second.”

  Wondering what he meant, I stopped looking out the back window and faced forward again. Jonathan was racing toward a sand trap that looked more like a ramp. The steep incline led up to a perfectly groomed green.

  My stomach tightened, and everything seemed to go in slow motion. The green Jeep charged ahead, hitting the compact sand in the trap. Luckily the vehicle didn’t slow down much from the sand and maintained its speed.

  We hit the lip of the sand trap and then we were flying. I slid toward the middle of the seat to try to keep the weight evenly distributed. It seemed like minutes had gone by as we sailed through the air. My hands, dampened by sweat, were clutching onto the front lip of the backseat.

  I strained my neck to look out the back window again. I saw the silver grill of the truck come up over the sand trap.

  Then we landed, and the Jeep threw me violently to the right. I banged my head off one of the structure bars and felt the Jeep rolling over. Before I could clear my head and blurry vision, the vehicle was resting on its side. Jonathan kicked open his door and struggled to climb up and out. I stood up to help Jonathan keep the door open when a thunderous crash filled my ears.

  Jonathan finally got out of the vehicle and helped me to get through the opening and back down to the ground. I turned to the truck and noticed that it had corkscrewed in mid-air and landed upside down. The damage had bent the door frames, so luckily, the men were trapped inside.

  Jonathan said, “Help me over here. We just need to get this upright again and we’ll be on our way.” He spoke calmly, but there was an implicit sense of urgency.

  I stood next to Jonathan in front of the roof and internally asked the Dagda to lend me some of his super strength. We both leaned down and hooked our fingers under the roof. Unless Jonathan contained some source of power he’d never demonstrated before, this vehicle wasn’t going anywhere.

  Jonathan looked over and made eye contact. “On three. One. Two. Three.”

  We groaned and grunted as we lifted the heavy piece of machinery. As we lifted it a few inches off the ground, my strength started to feel stressed, telling me there was no way we were getting this thing back on its wheels.

  As I stretched and strained every muscle, tendon and ligament, the car rose higher. With the vehicle now a few feet off the ground, I leaned down and jammed my shoulder under the side of the squared hardtop. Now that I had more leverage, I stood up straight, calves burning and trembling.

  It appeared we would come up just a bit short until Jonathan’s arms raised up above his head in a Herculean feat of strength. The tires hit the torn up green and it wobbled around. With all the weight released from my shoulders, I looked at Jonathan, my eyes wide, and said, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  As I jumped back into the Jeep, I saw that our stalkers were still trapped in the cabin of their truck, cursing and struggling to get out. Jonathan picked up a huge chunk of displaced grass and tossed it on top of some tire tracks. “Replace your divots, they always say.” He laughed and hopped up into the driver’s seat.

  Jonathan casually dug into the center console and pulled out a tiny vial with some white powder in it. He shoved the vial into his left nostril, plugged the other one and tilted his head back. One quick snort and he removed the empty glass and tossed it back into the console. “I just needed some energy after that whole mess.”

  Why the fuck was he so calm? Jonathan shifted into drive as someone on a golf cart drove toward us. The man was screaming incoherently and waving a golf club threateningly as he hung out the side of the cart.

  Jonathan waved to him as if he were an old buddy saying hello, smiled and peeled out. So much for divot etiquette. He pressed a button on the dashboard marked LP.

  My curiosity got the best of me. “What is that?”

  “That is the button that covers up the license plate. Glad all that is over.” Jonathan jumped back onto the main road. The Jeep was covered in mud and chunks of grass, but we were on four wheels and on our way home. Then the realization hit me.

  Jonathan could have just started a war. I said, “This is really bad. If any of those guys are members of a pack of any kind, this could be really bad.” There was one main wolf pack in Pittsburgh, but these guys could have been members of other packs outside the city.

  “Fuck ‘em,” Jonathan yelled.

  I argued, “This could start a war. This could be really bad for Pittsburgh.”

  He gazed in the rear-view mirror, trying to measure me. I leaned over behind the passenger’s seat as Jonathan said, “They might not know exactly who we are. You killed Mathias, right?”

  I responded, “No. I just shot him in the foot. You know I can’t kill people for the fuck of it.”

  Jonathan turned around in his seat, shook his head and pointed at me. He didn’t slow down or swerve as his eyes met mine. He started to say something and stopped himself, then he faced the road again. “Because you’re a pussy. A big fat one, to
o. You could be the biggest badass in all of Pittsburgh, next to me and June. Instead, you run around crying like a fucking baby. I can’t kill anyone except the supernatural bad guys,” he said the final sentence in a mocking tone.

  It was the first time he’d personally attacked me. The words stung a bit, but fuck feelings. His logic was flawed from the start. He’d called ahead, making sure they knew who we were. It mattered not if I killed the lawyer. They had his name. Not mine, thankfully. “I’m sorry you feel that way, but this could cause a lot more bloodshed. Bloodshed in the city I’ve sworn to protect.”

  Jonathan snarled, “Fuck you, Spiderman. Go back to high school. If they want to start a war, let them. They killed one of ours first. Roydell is gone. Fucking. Dead. I’ll get all the houses to band together and we’ll wipe those shit stains from the face of the earth.”

  Jonathan was lying blatantly. And fuck his Spiderman comment. I’d watched him kill the first man long before Roydell went down. He was starting to sound like Tony Montana and things had ended quite unceremoniously for him.

  This was a totally different side to Jonathan. Until now, he’d been like an avuncular benefactor. Within the span of the past twenty minutes, he’d shifted into a lunatic madman. He was almost in a euphoric state of mind from the killing and coke. At least, I assumed it was coke from his incessant finger-tapping on the dashboard.

  Another reminder to be careful around him. He was a bloodthirsty vampire. He’d buttered me up with priceless gifts I’d never be able to afford. It was like a roundabout illusion spell that cast him in a better light because he’d given me some valuable paintings and antiques. I couldn’t forget he was a six-hundred-year-old vampire.

  “I don’t know. I mean, they did kill Roydell. So maybe we should convene a meeting and call it even?” I suggested.

  “Even, my ass. The packs are so disorganized now, we’ll be fine. We didn’t go into anyone’s safe zone and murder them. A fight broke out and some people didn’t make it. They’re lucky I don’t start a war with them over this. They helped him steal the portal. There’s no way a normal human could do it himself.”