Skeletal

by Emma Pullar

  ‘I allowed you to leave Rock Vault with Bunce and his sister’s maid, just as I allowed you to enter this building.’ I gawp at Clover. ‘I know every move you’re going to make before you make it.’

  The vector ring, the floodlights, he wasn’t spying on the Eremites, he was spying on me!

  ‘So, all these years pretending to be a Slum Lord, pretending to look out for me, you were actually spying on me?’

  Clover pauses. He seems lost for words. As if he wants to spill some top-secret information but can’t, or won’t.

  ‘Yes, and yes, and I’m going to continue to watch you, Sky. I know you have more to show me and I know you got that weapon from Bullet.’

  I touch the gun strap.

  ‘If you know where he is,’ Clover says, firmly. ‘It would be wise to tell me.’

  ‘I don’t. He moves around.’ I say.

  ‘That he does, but I warn you,’ Clover leans forward. ‘He doesn’t forget a debt, so if you have any idea of his whereabouts …’

  ‘I told you I don’t!’ I say sharply.

  I wouldn’t tell him, even if I did know where Bullet was, I might have before, when I thought he was an Eremite. Clover leans back. Calm. Like nothing is ever a problem for him. I stare at the man I used to trust. I feel betrayed. Used. Lied to. But all I’ve really been is deceived. Clover isn’t family. I have no family. He isn’t even a friend. He was there for me when times were tough. I actually believed he cared about me, like Ms Grouse and the elders at the factory. They looked out for me too. Why do I feel hurt by his deception? Everyone in Gale City has an agenda. Why am I so surprised? How many others is he keeping an eye on? Who else is on his radar? Kian? Tinny certainly wasn’t. Cara and Bunce? Maybe. Clover was watching, and waiting for someone to lead him to the serum, and that someone was me.

  Clover gets up from the desk and walks towards me. He holds out the vial. I touch my Galva. Clover touches the breast of his suit jacket.

  ‘Do you think your draw is quicker than mine?’

  I let my hand drop. In the time it would take to ready my gun, Clover would have riddled me with bullets. I have to do something. I take a chance and lunge forwards, reaching out to snatch the vial. Clover grabs my wrist and forces my arm up behind my back, my other arm locked beneath it. I’m thrust down to my knees. He’s strong, too strong. I’m rendered powerless.

  ‘Now, we are going to put an end to this and you are going back where you belong.’

  He kneels behind me, his muscular arm clamps across my shoulder and his large hand grips my jaw. I struggle but it’s useless, he presses my back to his chest, my arms pinned.

  ‘No! Stop!’ I gasp.

  A glint of glass catches my eye. Thick fingers pinch my nose, I instinctively open my mouth to take a breath and a bitter taste hits the back of my throat. I gurgle and choke on the gloop, forced to swallow it. My body is released. I cough and retch, heaving on all fours. The serum, it’s gone, down into the pit of my stomach like a slimy serpent. It’s over. I glare up at Clover; the traitor, the liar. Why has he done this to me? Clover gives me his hand. Begrudgingly I take it, he helps me up and in my pocket my other hand weaves its fingers through four holes. Clover releases my hand and I release my pent-up aggression onto his face.

  WHACK!

  Knuckle-knife connects with his jaw. The uppercut knocks him into the desk. Blades shoot out either side and I bring one side down with all my strength, plunging it into his fleshy thigh. The fake slum lord shouts in agony. I lift my blade from the meat and it drips with Central blood, peppering the blue carpet.

  ‘Didn’t know I was going to make that move, did ya?’ I spit.

  Clover slumps against the desk, holding on to his lacerated leg with both hands.

  ‘Too bad about your flashy suit, nothing gets blood out!’ I smirk.

  I grin. His eyes are squeezed shut with the pain.

  You don’t control me. No one does. The moves I make are my own.

  25

  Crownado

  Out of the room, I run towards the lift. Then think twice. Every guard in this building will head for the lift. I look right and then left, there’s a door, not automatic, an emergency exit. I crash through it – stairs. A spiral of steps encased in a continuous glass window. I’m inside the eye. The siren sounds and I start my ascent, leaping two steps at a time. The city surrounds me, dipped in grey; the clouds look sprayed on. Any further up and I could touch the stratosphere. I want to stop, take in the Martian plains, contemplate my very existence but I can’t, so I don’t. Instead I bound around and up the spiral stairs at speed. Not fast enough, my footsteps soon have company. I stop, catch my breath, pull on the strap and clasp my Galva, hoping there aren’t too many. A fleck of tan uniform appears. I aim and squeeze the trigger …

  BANG!

  Kick to my shoulder as the bullet leaves the barrel. Agonising shouts of pain. I scream at the shocking sight of the guard’s exploded face. Eye socket blown out, skull and teeth visible where the skin has peeled away, wet flesh spilling down his neck. The body drops and my thoughts turn dark. I’ve killed a guard. Will his body be butchered? Am I providing a hunting service for the Morbs’ food supply? Two more guards appear in my peripheral vison, and before the first has a chance to hit the ground writhing, I shoot the second guard in the chest. Bone chilling screams echo off the glass, before a third guard lunges and grabs my waist, wrestling me down. I fall backwards and yelp in pain as the hard edge of the steps judder my skeleton; bruising my shoulders, back, and legs. I lift my head and shoulders and aim the gun between my legs. I flick the switch. One eye closed, I look down the scope.

  Bruuuuurakkkk!

  The third guard’s body is blasted backwards, riddled with bullets. This time I don’t scream. Third kill brings no emotion. The guard’s nose, eyebrows, and bits of skin explode from his skull and smear the crystal-clear glass behind him, his intestines spill out like a string of sausages. The headless body drops down beside the others. I force myself to my feet, arching my stiff back. My spine cracks. Then I reach into my pocket. No ammo and the magazine is gone. Damn. I whip the strap over my head, throw the gun behind me and into the mess of blood and disfigured bodies. I leap up two steps at a time, ignoring my protesting muscles and bruised back.

  The trapdoor at the top swings open with a clatter as the wind takes it from my hand. I climb up and the cold wind slaps my cheeks. Strands of hair whip around my frozen face. Behind me is the lightning rod which sits on the top of The Spiral; overhead, a storm creeps across the sky. This is the worst place I could be right now, but – there’s Bunce! What’s he doing up here? And why is he so close to the edge? I move closer. I see Kian, too. Wait. Something’s wrong.

  ‘Kian, what are you doing?’ I shout, but I know what he’s doing. He’s edging dangerously close to the edge of the building.

  ‘He thinks he can come along and take you away from me!’ Kian yells angrily, ‘Steal you from my life!’

  ‘What?’ I shout.

  ‘Says you’re in love,’ Kian spits. ‘That I should stay out of it.’

  ‘You’re not making any sense!’ I yell.

  Then it dawns on me. Kian thinks I’m with Bunce. He isn’t making throwaway comments, he actually believes we’re together. What would have given him that idea? I stare at Bunce. He frowns like a naughty child who’s told a fib but doesn’t want to admit it. Why would he do that? Morbs aren’t attracted to Skels … even if they were, they’d never tell anyone. Wait, did Bunce want to find the serum because he’s into me? Urgh, men!

  ‘This is stupid! More guards are coming,’ I shout, frustrated that they’re fighting over me at a time like this. ‘Kian, are you listening?’

  ‘Kian’s dead!’ he replies, darkly.

  His eyes are as black as stone, they don’t belong to Kian; those cruel eyes belong to someone else. I’ve seen them before. That terrible day, the day that came to be known as The Day of the Bird. An image of eighteen-year-old Kian comes to
me, surrounded by dead bodies sprawled on the ground – people who had been pecked to death by an angry murder of crows. They attacked without warning. I’d been watching from inside the meat factory. The noise was like a hurricane from hell, flapping gales laced with screams. It brought the whole workforce to the windows.

  We could do nothing but watch, as hundreds of people were slaughtered by the winged murderers. Everyone was dead in a matter of minutes, except Kian, who stood in the middle of the carnage, spattered with blood and black feathers. Untouched, unharmed, unhinged. He was soon nicknamed Crow and was thereafter known as an Augur or Avian – the birdman, a charmer of birds. I remember the fear everyone felt around him afterwards. They questioned why he was spared. Not to his face, many were too scared to question Kian himself, in case he brought the birds’ wrath down upon them. Not even Central could explain why the birds attacked. It was put down to a freak weather occurrence. A once-in-a-hundred-year storm that drove the crows crazy. But I’ve often wondered if there was more to it than that and Clover has suggested there is, with all that talk of cloning gone wrong. A part of me thinks Kian has always had a connection to birds, and that day he took it too far. That day he changed from charming them to being one of them. Birds attacking guards as well as worker Skels is a big problem for Central. Who will protect them if the guards are compromised? They poisoned three-quarters of the bird population that day. The birds haven’t attacked since, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t ever do it again.

  A few crows circle above us. Bunce’s eyes are tired and terrified, dark clouds beneath them; red, forked lightning across the whites of his eyes. Undeterred by the strong gales whipping his dark hair into a frenzy, Kian takes another step back. The wind’s whistle sounds like laughter, jeers daring him to take that last step, teasing him as it flaps around his tan shirt and pushes his body towards the deadly drop. Kian holds Bunce tight by the scruff of the neck. He yells over the howling wind.

  ‘Morbs can hover, but can they fly? Shall we find out, perhaps he’ll die?’

  Emotion is void, his face blank. More guards will be here any moment. Death surrounds us. I can feel it. The Dark Angel is waiting to steal our last breaths.

  I take a small step towards the two most important people in my life. It would be so easy to join them at the edge, give up now that the cure is gone but that’s probably what Clover wants and I won’t do what he wants. I can’t give up. I’ll fight. Kill every last scumbag guard if I have to. I’ve killed three already. Sure, they’re trained in combat and they’ll have knives, batons, swords, and I have … I have a blade in my boot and my knuckle-knife in my pocket.

  ‘Fuck it,’ I whisper. Crow moves his foot out over the edge, and lets it dangle in mid-air. He means to do it. He’s going to dive off, with Bunce …

  ‘Skyla!’ Bunce’s screams pour fear into my heart.

  ‘No!’ I shout.

  I run towards the edge and grab Bunce. I’m not strong enough to pull his large frame back towards the building. The stick falls from my bun and my hair falls over my face, my long ponytail pushed around by the wind. Heavy boots stamp behind me, but not quick enough. The guards are too late. Kian releases Bunce from his grip, lifts his arms out as if he will be caught by a circle of trusted friends and calmly falls backwards.

  ‘Kian!’ I yell.

  I slip and my voice breaks into a rushing scream.

  Bunce hollers beside me as we career off the roof of The Spiral and plummet towards the ground.

  Air rushes past me, my body hurtling around in the downdraft. My eyes stream with water from the wind chill and my stomach takes up permanent residency in my mouth. I’m struggling to breathe – rushing air burns my throat and nose. My pant legs blow up like mini parachutes and my shirt rides up, flapping around my goose-pimpled midriff. The flapping of wings becomes louder and louder, deafening. Feathers lash my face and claws scratch at my exposed skin. My momentum starts to slow, what’s happening? I force my eyes open.

  ‘This can’t be!’ I say, breathlessly.

  Below me is a dark tunnel – a twisting, undulating vortex of black feathers surrounds me. My limbs flail as crows push me around the safety net they have created. There’s someone ahead of me, legs straight, bare back, arms by his sides. He’s like an arrow racing to the ground. It’s Kian. I glance around as I ungracefully tumble within the bird funnel. Where’s Bunce? There’s a pull, like a noose around my stomach, and my body is hurled out into the elements. My back slams into something hard. My bones groan. I’m still moving but not in the same way. It’s disorientating.

  Something lands behind me with a thud and a sudden jolt throws me forward, my legs swinging into the air. I summon the strength to roll back onto the cold metal surface. A few feet from my face is the beating sound of hundreds of wings. I open my eyes to a tornado of crows spinning from the top of the carriage in front of me. I’m on top of the Sky Train. My heart pounds. I tilt my head back – the twister reaches as far up into the sky as I can see. The birds start to disperse. Their numbers thin, and clusters of black wings soar up into the grey clouds, like burnt paper sailing up from a fire. As the tornado disappears, a bare-chested man is left standing at its core. His fists are clenched and his pectorals and biceps twitch. He remains standing even though the propulsion of the train should have thrown him off. He stares at the sky, eyes black as coal. This is a powerful man. A man reborn – Crow.

  26

  Failed

  My attention is diverted from Crow, who turns and strides across the top of the carriages, to Bunce, who hollers with fright. I grab hold of the lump of flattened meat that is Bunce and grasp his elbow tight; to prevent him from rolling off the roof and to centre myself as the train starts to slow. A boulder lands on his head from above, he groans and pulls it under his arm; it’s not a boulder, it’s his backpack. The dark clouds above spit rain onto my skin, threatening to turn on the tap and soak us.

  A battered sign states we have arrived at Park Side. My eyes dart back to Crow, he’s gone. Bunce’s arm slips through my fingers and he slides down the side of the carriage. I scramble across the train roof combat-style. I go to grab hold of him before he falls to his death, but when I get to the edge, Bunce is descending the ladder. I follow and my boots clonk on the metal rungs. The train is tall, it’s about twenty rungs until we reach the ground.

  I search for Crow in the downpour. The rain stings my scratched face and drips into my eyes. My vision won’t clear, no matter how much water I blink away. I hurry down the platform, water smacks under my boots with every step, I reach the front of the stationary train. Skels disembark, weaving around me. The train’s headlamps shine into the gloom and light up the rushing rain. Bunce is dry beneath the shelter, he watches me, wondering what I’m doing. Soaked through, clothes clinging to my cold skin, hair dripping, I shiver. I have to find Crow.

  The train engine roars to life and bands of rain scream across the great metal body as it picks up speed. I search the roof and my gaze catches on a profile blurred by water racing across the window. It’s Crow. He’s inside the train. He doesn’t look for me, he doesn’t glance towards the outside world, he stares straight ahead, I blink, he isn’t there anymore and neither is the train. I stand in the pouring rain, watching the tail of the Sky Train bend down the track and disappear. It doesn’t just disappear with my friend. It disappears with my hope. I trudge back down the platform.

  ‘Skyla.’ Bunce shivers under the shelter, eyes skyward, searching the part where the crow tornado had been.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What was that?’ he asks, innocently.

  ‘I dunno,’ I say, but I do know.

  It was Crow who did that. He created that feathered twister. For years I’ve pushed Kian to use his strange power over the birds and now I wish I hadn’t. Whatever that was, it wasn’t what I had in mind.

  ‘We should go,’ Bunce says, teeth chattering.

  I’m at a loss. There isn’t much point in going on but I
can’t let Bunce freeze to death either. Where can I take him? Where’s safe? Nowhere is safe in this city and especially not now I know Clover is watching us. The battered white station sign sways in the rain and wind, my eyes trace over each letter in the words ‘Park Side.’ This station borders my side of town, and the park.

  ‘I know a place we can dry off.’

  I lead Bunce down the steps and back out into the sodden city streets. Lamps are lit, the showers ease and misty rain dances across beams of light in a bid to become one with the puddles below. Night falls and the darkness turns my thoughts to despair. Choice is a luxury few can afford and for the amount of choice I can afford, it isn’t worth having. Sometimes your only choice is death; yours or theirs. Right now, the easiest thing to do would be to leave this world hand in hand with the Dark Angel. Kian, surrounded by a vortex of crows, enters my consciousness. Not Kian. Crow. I guess now even he accepts this nickname. There’s no going back to the way things were.

  Before he was dubbed Crow, Kian had always been daring, determined to learn all he could from others and experience as much as possible. If kids were climbing trees, he’d climb to the very top. He never fell. His confidence was his superpower and he was treated like a superhero, and after he survived the massacre that’s what people believed he was. Actually, he was not so much a hero, more a villain gone straight. A protector but also recognised as unstable, someone who could snap at any moment. The Day of the Bird was a mixed blessing for Kian. His life was spared but he would never be the same, and ours will never be the same now either.

  I hold open the silver gates, stretching the locked chain-link to its limit so Bunce can squeeze through, then I slip in behind him and the gates clatter back together. I wondered why they didn’t use a modern gate or Vector Ring, my grandfather says it’s to do with nostalgia, designers like to mix the past with the present. The rain evaporates, giving way to an intermittent breeze. It struggles to keep momentum, too scared to follow us, too scared to wake them. This is foolhardy, I think to myself. I would never have brought Bunce here if I didn’t have to. I need time to gather my thoughts, and with guards hunting us we need a place they won’t think to look for us. I can’t stop time, no matter how much I wish for it but if we are set upon, time will stop for us – forever.