Candleburn

by Jack Hayes

  Blake staggered backwards.

  Oassan sniggered as he finished ripping the threads of the thobe from his body.

  “You should also know that I was a champion boxer at York Hall during my time in London,” he gloated. “I am younger than you, fitter than you, and I am better trained.”

  The Arab leapt forward and struck a crushing blow towards Blake’s skull.

  Blake’s block was messy.

  The punch missed his head but juddered into his shoulder blade.

  The force was immense, twisting him badly.

  Blake took a jump back. He needed some distance. Oassan’s arms were raised, open fists guarding his head. He was weaving lightly as he stepped forward, readying another hammer blow.

  Blake leapt backward again.

  “Coward,” Oassan said. “No-one wins through retreat.”

  A common topic among martial artists during Blake’s training sessions was the belief that boxers could be bested by using kicks and sweeping out their legs. Blake knew from experience that this was a mistake. In a battle of kicks to hits, a boxer’s speed and fitness would win every time. It was as foolish as trying to beat a boulder into submission.

  Oassan thrust a blow to the stomach. Another to the chest. A third to the cheek.

  Blake teetered.

  It was like being battered by a solid block of iron.

  Another two steps away.

  Blake wasn’t going to win this through brute force and blocking. His face burned. He would take too much damage before victory. This required a more holistic approach.

  He breathed out. He cleared his mind. His head emptied. His thoughts became the endless vastness of nothing.

  Blake’s feet intuitively shifted position.

  Oassan’s next four blows struck like machine gun fire. Jab to the head. Tapped aside. Jab to the nose. Avoided. Punch to the temple: knocked upward. Opening created. Blake slapped an open palm to the underside of Oassan’s chin. Neck exposed. Blake struck with his fingers, knife hand, to the suprasternal notch, two inches below the Adam’s apple.

  The effect was immediate.

  Oassan’s fourth blow, a punch to the ribs, failed to connect.

  He gasped for breath.

  He reeled.

  Blake flicked with his toes. The upper sole of his shoe connected with Oassan’s testicles.

  “Now that’s just low,” Oassan laughed faintly as he staggered back.

  Blake now had some space. Thought was returning into his mind. He sighed heavily.

  “Internalise,” he whispered to himself. “There is only energy.”

  He swept his arms in front of his chest in wide movements: clouds with hands. A shiver across his skin. It wasn’t cold. It was the spirit of tranquillity rushing through his body, the quickening of his soul, there was no gap between him and his enemy; they were one.

  Oassan dashed forward. Blake bounced to the side. Another wide, brawling punch. Blake moved. Left hand whipped. Curled. Circled his foe. He ducked the arm. Second hand to outside elbow. Strike. Strike. Strike.

  Oassan screamed.

  Blake bent his opponent’s right arm the wrong way at its elbow. With a fourth hit, flattened palm, Oassan’s bone snapped. Sinews gave way. The hand went floppy in Blake’s grip.

  Blake was behind his foe now. He hooked his left heel forward. Strike. Boot scraped along shin. At once, the knuckles of his right hand drove home a blow to the nose.

  Oassan lashed out with his left fist; a punch to Blake’s belly.

  It hit its target.

  Normally, it would have floored an opponent – but the blow was soft, deflated of power by the punishment Oassan had received.

  Oassan broke away.

  His arm flopped limply at his side. It now looked two inches longer. Still, Oassan kept his one working fist high, readying for another attack.

  Blake grabbed his enemy’s ear. Twisting, yanking, gripping, he shifted his body forward.

  Oassan’s fist pounded out. It hit Blake’s chin.

  Blake’s vision blacked for a fraction of a second.

  “Stay with me,” Blake commanded his battered body. “Stay with me.”

  A lesser man would have fallen.

  Blake remained on his feet.

  Oassan was moving round the topiary bushes, his back to one of Dubai’s many parkland sculptures. In the darkness, his mind entirely focused on the fight, Blake ignored the jagged outline of the artwork.

  Oassan looked nervously about him. He was preparing to make a break and run for it. Blake swept his hands forward, preparing a butterfly strike. Oassan’s nervousness was a feint.

  Another punishing blow.

  Blake deflected it.

  It missed his solar plexus but caught his chest.

  He clenched his muscles.

  Still, it knocked him.

  Oassan took another step back, clearly searching for an exit. His back brushed against the sculpture.

  The distraction was all he needed; Blake lashed out another kick.

  His shin crushed Oassan’s crotch. The Arab bent forward with surprise. An almighty uppercut thrust to the chin.

  Connection.

  Oassan physically lifted from the ground.

  A final strike, direct to the middle of his torso. The Palestinian flew backward. His one good arm flailed.

  He began to fall.

  Blood soaked silver spines burst through Oassan’s body. Blake stood shocked. The sculpture erupted through Oassan’s legs, arm, stomach, neck and mouth, emerging divine, diabolic, from the darkness.

  Blake stepped to the side.

  It was some kind of ludicrous artwork, a collection of linked stalagmites, like a section of a hedgehog.

  Blake was aghast.

  Oassan’s arm juddered. He rasped for air. Twitches in the midst of spasm. His eyes tracked to Blake, imploring for help. A giant glistening pinnacle, stained and wet emerged from between Oassan’s lips, stretching forth towards the sky.

  There was nothing to be done.

  Blake set his jaw hard.

  He grabbed the puzzle box from Oassan’s backpack and picked up Jeffrey. He turned and headed for the car.

  Behind him, Oassan sputtered his last breath, gargling blood as he stared at the heavens.

  36

  Ron’s phone began to ring.

  It rumbled across the counter as the bartender replaced his drink.

  “I have to take this,” he said to Asp. “It’s important.”

  He went outside to the patio area, leaving Asp to pay for their next round. Through the window, Nate watched as Ron paced back and forth, talking assertively to whoever was on the other end of the line.

  The outside area was nominally reserved for smokers. However, with the indoor smoking ban once again stalled in the country’s bureaucracy, the courtyard was, as usual empty. Why step outside and sweat in the 40 degree evening heat if you could sit inside?

  Ron was chortling to himself as he returned through the door.

  “My apologies,” he said. “Truly. Please go on. I take it you eventually found Dan?”

  “We did,” Nate replied.

  “This is when you stepped in?” Ron asked.

  “No. I was still on holiday,” Asp stated. “I came back three days later. Jim should have called me when he found the body. By all accounts, he was terrified of disturbing me – thought he’d lose his job if he didn’t clear things up himself.”

  “Would he?” Ron asked.

  Asp ignored the question.

  “I got back and Zain filled me in,” he continued. “We found Jim late last night. By all accounts he’d tracked down the hooker. I don’t know if he got his hands on the package but it seems unlikely. Either way, it doesn’t matter.”

  “Because he too was dead, in a bathtub with no fingers,” Ron continued, rubbing his beard.

  “Exactly.”

  Ron sat in silence as he worked through the possibilities. He removed from his jacket a small silver
pipe and a tin of local herbal tobacco.

  “And you haven’t gone back to the UK operative because...”

  “Dead,” Asp said. “Found him in his own bathtub this afternoon.”

  Ron tapped his middle finger impatiently on the bartop.

  “Fingers?”

  “Burned off. Pads of his feet too.”

  “Jesus,” Ron said. “This is far more serious than I feared.”

  Ron rested his elbow on the dark wood of the counter. He brought the knuckles of his hand to his nose and rested his head on it, deep in thought.

  “Which is why you’ve reached out to me,” he said. “British Intelligence is likely to be a bust for you. Those jerks will just kill everyone simply to cover some effete career bureaucrat dick in London.”

  “Right,” Asp replied. “I figured US Intel is better placed to help. I also reckoned that you have, based on our previous dealings, more extensive information than anyone else I know – which could prove valuable given my current predicament.”

  “There’s more?” Ron asked, his interest piqued.

  “Yes,” Asp said. “They’ve kidnapped my wife, kids and Zain.”

  “Holy crap!” Ron exclaimed.

  “Ron – I need help here,” Asp implored.

  Ron’s phone began to buzz again. He glanced at the message, then back to his friend. He opened the tin and began to stuff a thumb-nail sized, grass-green wad of tobacco into the pipe.

  “I’m not a big believer in coincidences,” Ron said slowly. “Right now there’s another situation brewing that could well be connected to your own. In the next hour or so, I expect a man to come here who may be able to fill in some blanks and help us choose a course of action.”

  Asp was surprised. He leaned forward on his stool.

  “Who?” he asked.

  Ron grabbed a box of complimentary matches from a pile next to some napkins. He lit his pipe and began puffing on the noxious weed it contained.

  “Someone who’ll tell us that Spring Heeled Jack is alive and here in Dubai,” he said.

  37

  “Hey my angel, it’s me,” Blake said into his phone as he pushed the speed limit towards Eleanor’s house.

  “Lovely, it’s so good to hear your voice,” Cathy said. “I was worried. I’ve been trying the house phone for the last hour and no-one’s answered. Normally you send me a text if you’re working late.”

  The car ignition tapped lightly against Blake’s leg as he hurtled along the outer ring road. It dangled loose from the steering column from crooked wires. Blake had hastily lashed it back together. He had been fortunate. The car restarted despite the patchwork job.

  “I know,” he replied. “I’m sorry. Something’s come up.”

  A deep sigh of resignation from his wife.

  “What’s that bitch done?” she asked. “I swear, I know we had a lot of reasons for me to return to Britain – the cancer, my job, my hopes that I could get a better shot at IVF if I came home – but the stress that woman caused was a big factor. I seriously believe she was a contributing factor to my disease...”

  “Baby,” Blake halted her as she continued to talk.

  “What?”

  “She’s dead.”

  “What?” Cathy exclaimed.

  “She was killed earlier this evening.”

  “Killed? How? By whom?” she asked. “Jesus – it wasn’t you, was it?”

  Blake snorted derisively. Oh God, he’d thought about it.

  He opened the small flap that concealed the car’s ashtray. The stench of stale, burnt ash wafted free. He clicked the round lighter button down. With a snap it began to heat.

  “No, baby. It’s too complicated to explain over the phone, especially since we don’t know who’s listening – but no, it wasn’t me.”

  Silence.

  “Shame,” she said flippantly. “If you can’t talk about what happened, can you at least tell me you’re safe?”

  “I’m in a lot of danger here,” Blake replied. “I was sent a package, as I told you earlier. Turns out somebody was setting me up or it was a desperate cry for help or something. Terrorists want it. They killed Alice because they thought she had it.”

  “You’re in your car?”

  Blake indicated and overtook a bus load of workers heading home from the construction parks in the north of the city. They gazed down in astonishment. It was a shock to see a westerner driving in a vehicle that was so battered and scratched.

  “I am. I’m going to put Jeffrey somewhere safe.”

  “Don’t,” she said. “Follow the safety plan you outlined to me the day I arrived. Just drive right now for the border with Oman. Visit that vet friend of yours, have Jeffrey tranquilised so you can get him through customs – you know how poorly they check the cars of Westerners – then make for the airport in Muscat. Boxcat can go to my friend Bill at the Opera House, who can send him over later.”

  Blake rubbed his hand across his mouth and chin. Already, stubble was forming. Cathy’s idea had merit. Why didn’t he just get out of there? He could be in the UK before the authorities figured out he was connected to the city’s growing death count.

  Cathy continued talking on the phone. The button lighter popped. Blake pulled it out and lit his cigarette.

  He weaved around a few more cars, carefully breaching the speed limit and slowing for the speed cameras.

  Why didn’t he just leave?

  “Blake?” Cathy said.

  His attention was brought back to the conversation.

  “What is it that’s keeping you there? Is this connected to your past?”

  There it was. The question. Cathy knew the vaguest of details about his history. She never pushed for more. She was a smart woman. From the way he checked out a room upon entry to the way he sweated his way through night terrors, she’d pieced it together.

  Blake sucked heavily once again on the cigarette.

  Ten years of marriage. Simply avoiding talking about these things doesn’t keep them hidden from a partner who truly loves you.

  “No,” Blake said. “These events are unconnected to my past. But they have reopened the door to it.”

  “Close it. Come home.”

  Every fibre of his being wanted to do as she wanted. It seemed so easy when said like that. He pushed the car faster.

  “I’ve only scratched the surface on this,” he said. “I’m not a fool. This is an iceberg, most of it is hidden. I know from before that when you just get this feeling... it goes much, much deeper than...”

  “This isn’t your fight. The US government doesn’t own you anymore.”

  Blake considered this. He tapped the burnt end of his cigarette into the ashtray. What was it driving him?

  “If I don’t put this down here and now it will follow us to London,” Blake said. “They tortured and killed Alice. They blew up her building. They have no qualms about the most horrific acts and are apathetic to harming both bystanders and people who are peripheral to meeting their goals. All this puts you in danger. That’s not something I’m willing to accept. It wasn’t when we met and it certainly isn’t now.”

  Cathy went quiet.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

  “Pack a bag and move out of the house for a few days,” Blake said as he smoked the cigarette. “Stay in a hotel. Don’t tell anyone – not even your mother and father – where. That’s important. Anyone you tell is put at risk. Switch your mobile phone off and take the battery out.”

  “How will you contact me?”

  “I won’t,” Blake said. “In three days, you can resurface. By then, this will all be over.”

  The car was slowly filling with smoke. Blake wound a gap in the window.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Trust me, you’ll see this on the news.”

  “Will you promise me one thing?” Cathy said slowly, “that you’ll come home safely?”

  A pause.

  “That I can,” Blake lied, a
nd stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray.

  38

  Al Barari was a district of Dubai so exclusive that 95% of the city didn’t even know it existed. Even for those that did, finding it and gaining access was an Olympian feat. Situated on an unimposing minor side-road that peeled away from the second of the outermost bypasses, Barari was purposefully designed to be hidden from prying eyes.

  Blake followed the elaborate series of contortions, double backs and loops that eventually meandered their way into the core of the complex – a patchwork of botanical landscapes that would drop the jaw of even a Kew gardens curator.

  As he considered his next course of action, a humming bird danced ballerina-like in the Audi’s headlamps and flittered away between the yuccas that lined the road. In the back of the car, Jeffrey protested loudly.

  “Shhh, little boy, shhh,” Blake soothed, pulling to a halt in front of an Arabian mansion built between a waterfall and a forest of coconut palms.

  “It’s just until tomorrow. I promise,” he whispered, taking the distressed cat from the back seat.

  “I was expecting you hours ago!” a voice said behind him.

  Blake jumped, startled.

  Eleanor.

  “Bloody hell!” he laughed nervously, clutching at his heart. “You terrified me!”

  “I guess Boxcat’s not the only one who’s high-strung this evening.”

  Jeffrey continued to scratch and mewl with persistence.

  “You want to tell me about it?” Eleanor asked.

  Her cultivated North Shore Sydney tones were almost harmonic with the relaxing spatter of water against the rocks. Blake let out a deep, dark, sigh as Eleanor lifted the cat-carrying case from his hands.

  “I’d love to,” he said. “I can’t. I worry it would put the two of you at risk.”

  She poked her fingers through the front of Jeffrey’s cage and made comforting noises. The cat responded by rubbing his cheek against her fingers.

  “Work trouble?” she asked.

  “Sort of – but not what you’d think,” Blake replied. “This isn’t a story I’ve written that’s kicked a hornet’s nest. It’s much, much worse.”

  “Want to come in?”

  “Is His Excellency at home? I really need some advice.”