by G R Jordan
The woman swung her auburn hair from one shoulder to the other, her green eyes fixed on Kirkgordon, and smiled briefly before allowing her tongue to run the length of her bottom lip. He knew that tell; Alana always did it when she was happy. No, not happy, more… contented, at peace, or was it joy? Whatever, she was always in the best of places when she did it. And the best of places had always involved Kirkgordon and their children. It had been so long since she’d run the length of her lip.
The children continued to laugh and giggle at each other, occasionally finding those noises new to their voices which caused such amusement. Alana kept a watchful eye but was constantly drawn back to Kirkgordon, penetrating his soul through his dark eyes. He had always wondered how she had found something to like in there, something to treasure in the darkest times. Since the crypt incident, he had become wilder, his cries in the night causing her such pain. First ramblings in the night and then physically lashing out, an unconscious crusader who only ended up striking the one he loved.
When she had left – by mutual consent, a plan to save her physical pain – they had held each other so tightly that they had left light bruises, keepsakes on one another. They still spoke, but he could hear her anger at the darkness within him. Austerley’s name was never mentioned, the white elephant she sought with her blunderbuss. Unlike himself, Alana didn’t have that shared pain that allowed him the chance to bestow pity on Austerley.
Suddenly the scene changed and he was lying in a bed. It was massively wide and he felt swamped, but his eyes quickly focused on the woman exiting the shower alcove across the room. As she took her lone towel and dried herself, he lay back, remembering each curve that was now exposed. He felt the hunger rising, realizing that he had been too long adrift from this island of refuge. Having caught him looking, Alana turned round with her hands on her hips, a comical towel wrapped round her head, and mouthed a teasing “What?” Surveying her glory he knew the script called for him to grab her and drag her under the covers. That was what he had done out in Portugal. But it had been too long and this wasn’t even real, so he enjoyed the view until consciousness came to claim him.
With consciousness came the pain. The gorges across his back screamed their anger, forcing him to roll slightly and often to lift them from the couch he was lying on. Occasionally they would stick and he knew welts would form, so deep were the valleys impressed. A more general hurt existed across his fuller frame but it was lingering somewhere in the scenery, masked by the sharp stabbings of the gorges.
“Hey, sunshine!” His head flicked left to see Calandra standing in a crop top and panties. Her long black hair was wet, from showering he guessed, and her impressive form was fighting to occupy his mind through his watery eyes. He sighed and rolled his head back into the couch.
“That was kinda disappointing. Cheers for that. You sure know how to make a girl feel good.” She had said it quite jovially but the hurt in her voice clambered out at the edges.
“Sorry.”
“Just not recovered, then.”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Well, thanks once again. My goodness, what does it take with you? A nurse’s outfit? Or fully nude? It’s been a while, but if nude is what it takes to get you going, I don’t mind.”
“Please, no. Don’t do that!”
“Come on. Kinda taking a hit on self-confidence here.”
“Sorry. It’s just… I have someone… or rather, had. Sorry. It’s not your lack of beauty… it’s your jammed-to-the-hilt jar-load of it that’s the problem…” Kirkgordon’s voice tailed off as he returned to thinking about Alana.
“Sorry. Didn’t know. You want me to put something else on?”
“I’d like to say suit yourself but to be honest… probably a good idea. Though my eyes do say different.”
“Now you are buttering me up. A runner-up prize!”
“Trust me, there’s a part of me stirring that will make me do something stupid, so kindly put something else on. Oh, and thank you!”
“For the view?” She stood there, defying Kirkgordon who had turned to look at his saviour.
“No. For saving me.”
“Pleasure. I’m sorry I can’t help your deep pain. I hope she can!”
When Calandra returned, she had added an open tracksuit top and a short black skirt. The view hadn’t changed much but the tension was gone. With the physical urgings reduced, Kirkgordon’s brain kicked in with some obvious questions. What had happened to her accent? Where were her wings? What age was she?
“Bit slow on it. But you did take a fair battering. Hell, so did I. They aren’t real, if that’s what’s bothering you.”
“What are they then? Where did they go…? I mean, they were massive!” His curiosity was aroused now and, forgetting his own maxim that he unendingly denounced Austerley with, yes, he decided to “go there”.
“A physical projection of the mind. It’s a neat trick. Look!” Calandra turned her back to Kirkgordon and dropped the tracksuit top before pulling the crop top over her head. Her bare back showed several slash marks. Suddenly, two enormous wings appeared on her back and beat gently. Kirkgordon felt a cool breeze on his face. Calandra turned round and unashamedly walked towards the couch, wings still unfurled. Kirkgordon tried to focus hard on the wings and not the exposed white flesh until she sat down on the edge of the couch, facing away from him again. The wings vanished and her scarred back was just inches from Kirkgordon’s face.
“Touch my back! Look, nothing sexual, just touch my back!” Kirkgordon ran his hand across her back. The skin was so cold, like touching the ice on a frozen pond; it took a while until the real depth of the coldness could be felt.
“So cold. How?”
“I am seven hundred years old. And this coldness, this curse, keeps me like this. That’s why I look twenty-five.”
“Actually I reckoned mid-thirties.”
“Your charm is devastating. Okay, you’re right, thirty-six to be accurate.”
“What curse?”
“She did it. She killed him and left me like this.” For the first time Kirkgordon heard her voice start to crack, the confidence overtaken by a chilly reticence. She turned and looked straight at Kirkgordon. “Can you imagine what it’s like to be in your prime yet appear as a freak to the men you attract? How they cower at my touch, or wet themselves when they feel my skin? They fear me, just fear me! There’s no closeness, never.”
“Except Austerley. He would love you for it. You’re the very thing he seeks.”
“Yes,” Calandra whispered, but tears were coming through now too, “but it’s still a thing with him. Loved for being extraordinary, not for being me. He gave me comfort, physical relief, but not a mutual embrace. I hold him dear for what he did for me and I do care deeply for him. But I am a pet to him. Not an equal.”
“Don’t judge him too quickly. He’s too ready to follow his curiosities, but there’s a real person with real cravings in there. I saw his face in the restaurant. You mean a lot to him.”
Kirkgordon was holding her cheek and she cried hard, eventually leaning into his shoulder. When she sat back up, she saw he was crying too.
“What?” she inquired of him. “You don’t seem an overly emotional person. What?”
“You…” He let her see him enjoying her as his eyes wandered up and down her body. “You are so beautiful. I’m sorry.”
For the first time since her lover died she felt a true embrace with no intention other than to tell her she was comforted. “Cally. Call me Cally. It’s what my brother called me. No one else does.” She reached for her top and pulled it back on over her head. All the time she stared deep into Kirkgordon’s eyes and noted that he stared right back, never once seeking to take in a last look at her flesh. “Sorry for the whole flesh thing.” She bowed her head almost in apology. A hand raised her head up and Kirkgordon kissed her forehead.
“And you can call me Churchy. Only Austerley ever uses it. As for the flesh – I�
�m a man, it’s not like it wasn’t enjoyable. But I think there’s more to you than a hot body.”
“A cold one, actually!”
“Yeah. And you’re better off without that accent.”
Old Time Girl
Kirkgordon slept for much of the remainder of the day. When he did wake, Cally brought him some coffee and a little bread with butter. She explained that the small flat they were in belonged to an acquaintance who had had to flee Russia in a hurry, leaving her the key. In actuality, it was more of a bedsit. One side of the rather dreary situation was taken up with a modest kitchenette consisting of a small oven and hob arrangement, a sink, a fridge and an outdated microwave. They were a mishmash of colours, functional rather than decorative. The other side of the room was taken up by the couch Kirkgordon was lying on and a rather petite chair.
Cally sat in this chair while Kirkgordon slept, staring at him for long periods of time. In deference to him she had put on a pair of black jeans and a grey sweatshirt. For some reason she found herself relaxing in front of him, dropping her usual pretence even when he was awake. She enjoyed their banter and found it hard to accept this man as just a friend. She had a fondness for him that didn’t know where to sit itself.
Kirkgordon’s concerns about Austerley surfaced early in their conversations. Cally explained that Austerley must have been taken to the other realms by the winged creatures, the Nightgaunts. Many times over the years she had encountered them but never in such numbers. Despite Kirkgordon’s protestations about how strong the beasts were, she remained resolute that they were some of the calmer creatures from the “darker places”. As for retrieving Austerley, Cally quickly dashed any optimism Kirkgordon may have had.
“I don’t know my way around there… wherever there is? We would be on our own in very foreign territory. It’s a no-brainer, Churchy!”
Kirkgordon felt a closeness when she used that name. He also saw the worry in her face for her ex-lover Austerley. However, there was some good news.
“We have what they want, Churchy. They will come for it at some point.”
“The manuscript? What do they want with it? They don’t even have eyes.”
“It’s not the Nightgaunts that want it. I told you, they are small creatures. Big talons, yes, but still pawns. Someone put them up to this. Someone wants that music.”
“And Austerley? They killed Zahn’s offspring but they flew away with Austerley. Why?”
“How well do you know Austerley? No, don’t answer. Not well enough or you wouldn’t have asked. You probably think him mad talking about all this Elder stuff.”
“Not mad, no. Daft to get involved, yes. Stupid enough to keep pushing. But not mad.”
“No, he’s not mad. I tell you, for seven hundred years I’ve been living with this darkness and yet Austerley knows more than me. He understands the rituals, the meaning of things. He grasps the lore and the fact. He holds the horror within himself. But he does hold it. Most people think he is… loony tunes, is that the expression now? Well he may be a bit loony tunes but with the knowledge he has, anyone else would be dead. And at their own hand. He’s stronger than you realize. But yes, he’s more curious than the cat.”
“So what? They actually want him. For what he knows.”
“Churchy, listen. The people who get involved with this darkness, these Elder beings, not all of them understand how to bring things about. Generally, they have to research and find things from the past. To them, Austerley is like a walking encyclopedia. Somebody wants to do something and my guess is Austerley knows how. God help us.”
It was clear that Calandra was thinking back to previous battles, with an occasional touch to her sides and knees, a nod to injuries sustained. Her eyes might be staring at the bland emulsion on the wall but what they saw was pain and hurt from the past. She juddered back into awareness when Kirkgordon proposed a new idea.
“So, if they want this manuscript, why don’t we just burn it, here and now?” Kirkgordon threw the document to the floor and reached for a match from the kitchenette. He struck it and let it fall, only for Calandra to catch it in her hand.
“No! You can’t burn it!”
“Why ever not? Without it they are stuffed!”
“Feel the paper. Does it feel like any paper you have ever felt? No, thought not. It’s not paper of this world. You burn that and, yes, you will see ashes. But the manuscript will reform itself elsewhere, probably in the other worlds. Right where they want it. Our keeping it is a problem for them. They need to find us.”
“So, just to recap, we have a music tune which some otherworldly beings want to do who-knows-what with, but probably some very bad thing. They have kidnapped the only person who might know what this is and put him in a place we can’t reach. And we can’t stop them because we can’t destroy the music. All we can do is hide it from them.” And, thought Kirkgordon, I am sitting in a small flat in Russia with a seven-hundred-year-old woman with huge wings, having been flashed and propositioned by her, though not unpleasantly, only for her to unburden her sorrows on my shoulder. And I got out of the bodyguard business because it got too exciting?
“Cally, can they find us?”
“Yes, and they will. We can evade them for maybe a week tops but they will track us down, and not by conventional methods either.”
“Can you contact them?”
Calandra thought long and hard.
“Yes. It will shorten the time for them to find us, though.”
“Okay, the way I see it, we are already marked. There’s no good ‘out’ here. So I propose we fight on our own terms. We need to meet them and they need to bring Austerley. We need to smash and grab!”
“They’ll not bring Austerley. We haven’t got anything to offer. They’ll just wait until they find us. Easier and safer for them.”
“Yes, except we know how to destroy the manuscript. Permanently. So they will have to come.”
“And how do we do that?” Calandra asked.
“How should I know? Time for some misdirection. We need Austerley. He’ll understand all this, he’ll know what to do.”
“You believe that?”
“Yes. Well, he’ll have the pieces. And we’ve got to hope he can put them together. All other routes are dead ends. Agreed?”
“Agreed!”
“Okay, so you have to find a contact.”
“Hmmmm. Okay, I think I know how to do this. But Churchy, you’ll need to avert your eyes. I’m afraid the dark world doesn’t know Calandra, bearer of the grey sweatshirt and low-cost jeans. Time to wear the uniform again.”
Calandra popped out for about an hour and when she returned she was carrying a large black holdall over her shoulder. Smiling broadly at Kirkgordon, she clanked into the room, the bag’s contents being metal in nature. It was obvious she was going to change and so he closed his eyes and successfully fought the desire to sneak a peek at the stunning form he had seen earlier. After a short period of rustling and the occasional ‘ting’ of metal colliding, he felt a cold hand touch his cheek.
Standing before him was a vision of royalty and power. From the pointed black boots to the silver shin guards, the mid-thigh chain mail to the skimpy breastplate, the gauntlets running up her forearms to the plumaged helmet from under which flowed her lavish black hair, and the cross-shield to the sharp gleaming short sword: all gleamed with promises of power and sensuality. Kirkgordon laughed, thinking he had wandered into a particularly good fancy dress shop.
“It has been six hundred years and they didn’t laugh then. At least, they stopped when I neutered the first five who did.”
“Sorry. Trust me, it looks great, but maybe a bit over the top for modern Russia.”
“Given the time that has passed since I last met my contact he’ll need this to recognize me.” She laughed, then grew serious. “And fear me.”
“Do you need company?”
“No. He’s a man so I’ll turn on the sexual side. Well, at least he was a man.�
��
“When are you leaving?”
“Five minutes. I just need to get the door.”
Kirkgordon was confused but watched as Calandra drew some designs on the floor with a thick piece of chalk. She then spoke some words he couldn’t even begin to pronounce. Suddenly the floor began to glow and then it erupted into a bright light. Kirkgordon had to avert his eyes but he heard her say “see you in ten!” The room went quiet and resumed its normal level of brightness.
Lying back, Kirkgordon tried to switch his mind off and remember his dream from the morning. Annoyingly, he had just got back into watching Alana leaving the shower when the room blazed bright again and he heard the word “Bingo!”
“Did it go all right?”
“Yes it did. Apart from the outfit. Seems everywhere’s gone a bit more modern. Felt like a tart on parade.”
Kirkgordon laughed.
“Still looks good though.”
“So, what’s next?”
“We wait. Here. And I get out of this armour. I don’t remember it being this tight.”
Russian Country Life
It had taken a day to get there and, if he was honest with himself, it wasn’t worth the view. Kirkgordon watched his breath smoke in the morning cold and was thankful for the large bomber jacket he had picked up at a small street stall before they left Moscow. Also helping were the scarf, the gloves and the rather thick socks inside the uncomfortable but practical wellies. But cold had never really bothered him. Well, not the weather variety. The snow painted the ground a perfect pure white, the like of which was usually only seen on postcards. This particular postcard, however, was ruined by the copious broken-down farm machinery that littered the landscape. Amongst a number of trees and covered hedges sat once-proud industrial cultivating giants, now silent and impotent. They were falling apart piece by piece, rust spreading like a disease throughout the body. Kirkgordon wondered how long he had before this madness started affecting him in the same way. Would he start to go like Austerley?