Blood On Borrowed Wings: A Dark Fantasy Thriller (5 page)

Corps and corpse: if you aint in one, you’ll be the other.

Vanguard Training: We Were There

Hargreaves and Hargreaves

‘Drake?’ said Pan.

Her voice was thick and full of the world of sleep, it echoed off the stone walls and sounded loud coming as it had from the perfect stillness and hours of silent incarceration.

‘You okay?’ I said.

‘I…I don’t know.’

I could hear the rustle of her clothes as she shifted position.

‘Where…?’

‘I don’t know. In a cell. Be careful what you say.’

‘Who did this? Last thing I remember we were at the fight.’

‘I don’t know. Probably the same guys who attempted the smash and grab. They could be watching and listening right now.’

‘Thirsty.’

‘That will be the drugs, probably stuck you with the same thing they did me.’

I heard a small sob escape her and was not surprised. I didn’t think she would hold it together so long. I left the concrete block I had been installed on and slid over to her on the floor. She flinched away as I touched her, my arms outstretched, my flat palms brushing against her soft skin as I reached out for her in the dark.

‘It’s me,’ I whispered.

 
Her hands came up towards me, met my face at my lips and slid down to the line of my unshaven jaw. It felt like a bolt of electricity into my spine, my nervous system igniting to the stimulus, sending lights and colours off to my extremities. It was not desire. There was nothing sexual or loving about it. Our situation made that impossible. It was just a touch amplified to the nth degree by our proximity, precarious circumstances and the lack of other sensory input. She withdrew her hand as if aware of the frisson and I told her what I knew about the room and the fight that had put me here. Us here.

‘I shouldn’t have hired you,’ I whispered.

No response.

‘I work alone. Always have. I knew it was a mistake to get anyone involved, even…’ I let the sentence taper off, not liking where it was going.

‘Go on, say it,’ she said.

I didn’t.

‘A prostitute. Whore. Say it. The terms mean nothing to me.’

I still didn’t say anything.

We both sat quietly and I used the opportunity to listen to see if our voices had brought any discernible attention from our captors. It had not.

Her tone changed, ‘Look I am not one of those ‘tarts with a heart’, attached to you in any way other than by your wallet so you don’t have to feel responsible for me. I knew the risks, what I was getting into, and you paid me fairly. You’re just another fuck, so to speak, so get off your hero horse and get us out of this cold dark mess. I thought you were supposed to be good at this stuff.’

‘Is that your attempt at motivational speaking?’

‘Fuck you Drake.’

She was right. I was not obligated to her. I had ended countless lives in my military and now mercenary careers, lives meaning much more to the world than this expensive hooker ever would, but that was not the point. She was on my team, one of my crew, and if being in the Vanguard had pounded one thing into my meat-headed skull it was that Corps always came before self, if not for survival then for the dignity of death with honour.

Death with honour.

The walls of the perfect blackness of the cell fell in on me, and I felt my heartbeat and breathing start to gallop, my pulse boomed through my body, metronomic thunder. Narcotics swayed me again, took me somewhere else. Images and sounds from long ago played across the screen of my mind’s eye…

*

...I saw the child chopping wood and he smiled at me. A Nimbus breeze teased his unkempt fringe into motion and he rested his small hatchet down to wipe the hair from his eyes. As he chopped two small chunks of log tumbled from the stump, yellowy bark splinters flew off onto the forest floor to rest among the pine needles. He picked them up, dropped them onto a pile and placed another log onto the stump. He raised the hatchet again….

*

‘You alright? Your breathing is all over the place,’ she said.

‘Fine, only trying to figure a way out of here.’

‘Wherever here is.’

Her dress rustled as she shuffled again, a fruitless attempt at trying to get comfortable and I had an idea. It was a long shot but considering our odds on getting out of here alive, it was a chance.

I went through all the permutations in my head.

It was our only chance.

And she was not going to like it.

Men are to government

As wasps are to picnics.

Old Lowlands Bygones Gone

A. Gerritas

Nimbus City looked like a tree stump, a flat topped, sheer sided mountain. It’s circular settlement perched on a flat wheel atop vertical faces, rising up from the lakes and plains of the Nimbus state like a podium from the stage of the Lowlands and Deadland swamps.

Croel and Mckeever flew beyond the neglected buildings of Nimbus’ City centre and into it’s outlying rich swathe of land called the Edgelands. It was difficult to believe they were still over Nimbus City at all. Occupying the fertile land at the cliff’s edge the buildings here were opulent and sprawling. As clear a demarcation of social status as was visible anywhere in the surviving world, and as juxtaposed to their library as possible.

There were no peaks or valleys, no slate grey mountain ranges punching up towards the atmosphere to allow any kind of distance perspective up here, just model homes of the rich, winged and fortunate.

As they circled, Croel scanned the skies for danger, natural or otherwise.

If wars and conflict had changed the face of the earth over time, then nature had surely obliterated it. The enormous elliptical plinth that formed Nimbus’ capital looked like a volcano, but with solid, sheer, vertical sides at it’s full circumference. It looked like an enormous stepping stone waiting for a mythical giant’s boot. It rose more than a thousand feet into the air and was said, to quote an old Blackwing General, to be as old as Icarus’ dream. It had risen from the earth in a cataclysmic tectonic shift that had raised the ocean’s levels and rased man’s presence from more than three quarters of the planet. Climates had changed, oceans had swelled but man had survived and then thrived where he could.

Eventually.

Croel banked and his black feathers clapped and ruffled on the wind. Nimbus City dominated the sky in this remaining habitable corner of the world, surrounded as it was by the undernourished lands of the Lowlands. The oppression of the filthy black industrial architecture was almost as pervasive as the Mudhead Police siren soundtrack that engulfed it. He hated it down there. He found it a dark, seedy place heaving with the prominent scars of crime, overpopulation and misuse. He much preferred living in the centre of the Edgelands, amongst the buildings and anonymity of the old world, walking among the relics of a forgotten time, existing up in the sky, where people with wings were meant to be.

The fat moon sat high above the elevated horizon of the Edgelands and illuminated the trees. Shadows projected from the tall pines, spewing new patterns of light and dark over Nimbus, like an ancient sinister spell cast from a witch’s raking
 
black fingers.

It was dangerous to fly the edge here, as the moon could cast shadows onto clouds and that would almost certainly bring windsharks. Croel and Mckeever knew the windsharks tended to avoid Primary House, the heavily armed bastion of pampered government officials. Too many harpoons and not enough easy pickings had taught them to hunt elsewhere.

Croel despised the elite who lived at the Edgelands, they had all left the heart of their city,
his
city, to decay and rot into the abandoned vacuous core that it now was. Neglected buildings, untenable real estate, desolate and vacated, stood like tombstones to dead city planning. And gave them all the privacy they needed. Governor Rose was forever resisting the clamour for development there, fearful it would lead to the masses looking to relocate and change the exclusivity of being that much closer to the stars.

Mckeever pointed down to his right as a large building loomed into view.

Primary House.

Perched right on the Edgelands of Nimbus, curled up in its circular cocoon of turrets, fences and guard patrols, it felt like a small city in itself. Well-cropped and organised vegetation spread across the open grounds whilst the higher tops of trees and ornate water features gave it a statelier, inaccessible air. The proximity of it to the cliff’s edge meant that where the wind pushed the bushes and grass flat, they leaned heavily away, as if scared of the drop. Moss, lichen and hardy weeds clung to the outside of the Southern-most wall, life making a valid attempt at establishing itself in the most barren and inhospitable limits and corners of the cloud-land world.

A stronger breeze bound in and up from the cliffs and buffeted Croel and Mckeever as they flew over Primary House’s perimeter and turned to land at the rear of the main building. They exchanged the signal for descent, banked sharply, angling their wings into the thermals and cold pockets to spiral down to back stores where, as agreed, Vedett would be waiting.

They landed, thankful that the journey was over, the extra weight had made their backs ache, but, despite the late hour, both felt invigorated from flying.

Mckeever checked his grimy bandage was still in place. ‘That’s blown off the cobwebs.’ he said.

‘Indeed,’ said Croel.

'Now let’s go and see the spider.’

Though there are exceptions, successful women and poor men are skinny.

10 Steps to Spotting Successful

D. A. Walsh

‘To put it bluntly, Governor, you are fucked.’

‘Yes, that is quite blunt, even for a foul mouthed political advisor like yourself.’

‘Polls are down, public opinion has bottomed out, your ratings are so low, hell, even
you
wouldn’t vote for you.’

‘I am aware of my current standing, Mr Shunt, painfully so.’

‘If you don’t take measures, drastic measures, to curry some favour with your populace, you’re done. Finished.’

‘I have already set the wheels in motion.’

‘Well they better be oiled and slick and revolving quick Governor. This is going to be a fuckstorm of...’

Governor Velena Rose stood from her desk sharply, shoving her chair back. Shunt flinched as it noisily scraped veneer from the highly varnished wooden floor.

‘Mr Shunt I get the message but I will thank you to keep the profanities and your pithy fortune cookie sound-bites to yourself. I am fully aware of the magnitude of my dilemma, but it will pale into insignificance next to yours if you persist with that patronising tone.’

Shunt shuffled in his chair but remained silent.

‘I am working on something that will change the face of Nimbus today. Something that will make everyone sit up and take notice, that Nimbus needs protecting, by me,’ said Governor Rose.

‘As your chief political advisor, may I ask what it entails? I could release a few snippets to the media, give them something positive to speculate about?’

‘The machinations of how this will work is not for speculation and it belongs to a different department entirely.’

He nodded intently, ‘I see,’ said Shunt.

The Governor walked around her desk and sat on the corner, crossing her legs with second nature grace. ‘I am glad you
see
. Is there anything else?’

Shunt thought for a moment, ‘I have some advice Governor, that is what I am paid to give, after all.’

‘Go on,’ the Governor said.

‘Make sure whatever you are doing will address the Horizoneers. I know they are a dishevelled bunch of morons on the face of it, but underneath that there is a dangerous swell of public opinion for the protestors, an opinion which is prevalent throughout the demographic today.’

‘And that is, Mr Shunt?’ She enjoyed making him fidget in his chair.

‘That the winged elite and those of us lucky enough to live on this glorious plinth in the clouds cannot have it our way much longer; that they want a share of the wealth and...’ he looked to his left out of the office window at the night sky, ‘the view.’

‘“Bringing the Sky and Earth Together,” their slogan, that is how it goes is it not?’

‘Yes Governor Rose.’

‘Well I am bringing some people of my own together here at Primary House, tonight. Some from the Edgelands, some from the Low, and that is a start.’

Shunt searched for a reply but could not find one.

‘I apologise for the ungodly hour I summoned you Shunt. Please apologise to your good lady for me too.’

‘I will.’

Shunt gathered his papers from Governor Rose’s desk, unread graphs and unaired quotes, stuffed them unceremoniously into a satchel far too small for the job and left.

‘Same time tomorrow please,’ said Governor Rose, just before he closed the door.

*

Velena Rose walked into the adjacent meeting room where a table had already been prepared for Newton. She shuddered at the glare of the plain white table cloth that adorned it, walked over to the drinks cabinet and poured rum into one of her flawless crystal tumblers. The dark amber liquid gave off a pleasing, aromatic scent that aroused her taste buds and levelled her nerves. She swirled it around with a small circular movement from her hand. Ice caught in the whirlpool, clinked noisily on the clear, smooth glass and then she drank.

She hoped Leonora would hurry up and arrive before Vedett.

Despite her status, she always felt uneasy dealing with him. He was a revolting man whose methods and demeanour repulsed her. As weakness was something she could not afford to show, now or ever, she had allowed herself two measures of rum but would allow herself no more. She hoped it would keep her unease at bay.

Vedett’s blind loyalty to whoever was paying and his obstinacy to ‘get the job done’ had made him a very useful asset. His barbarism, greed and psychosis, made him a great one. She was aware of his reputation but showed no professional interest in his clandestine activities, only ever requesting his assistance in matters where sensitivity and diplomacy were not of paramount importance.

He rarely disappointed.

She looked out of the window across the dark and expansive lawns, lush borders and ornate garden landscaping, past the guarded perimeter and scarred security turrets of Primary House to the sky beyond and rested her forehead against the cool glass. Sometimes she felt as much a prisoner to her own circumstances as she did a privileged and powerful politician. She was bound by duty, in accordance with public statutes and private sponsorships, to make her every move not only accountable but congruent with party, social and moral necessity. She was like a moon, a satellite stuck in earth’s orbit, one whose gravity had a significant effect on the world’s revolution, but that would ultimately always be a million miles away.
   

As Governor on Nimbus she had an obligation to protect her people and her elevated home around the clouds. She straightened an edge of the thick damask tablecloth that waited for Newton’s body convinced that the recently sanctioned murders were merely an extension of her need to protect. After all, they had not been the first.

Leonora entered through a sliding panel, moving with her usual quiet assurance, and nodded in deference, smiling at Governor Rose as she closed the door. There was none of the usual crackle evident when two powerful women occupy the same space, simply a mutual respect and understanding.

Leonora placed a heavy leather skin bag down underneath the table, Governor Rose heard the substantial credits shift then rest inside.

‘Payment,’ Leonora said, a forced, thin grin played across her lips, ‘and all the lower Senate and incumbent staff have been relieved of their duties at Primary House for the night Governor.’

The Governor nodded. ‘Drink?’ she gestured at the drinks cabinet.

Leonora made her way over to a few expensive looking bottles. ‘It should be compulsory when dealing with
him
.’ There was a moment of silence as Leonora poured a drink and Governor Rose returned to the window.

She liked her personal assistant, Leonora, who had been her face and voice at many public, business or social functions for her last nine years in office. After the dramatic, well-publicised assassination attempt at the beginning of her first term, the Nimbus public saw Leonora’s heavy involvement not as a weakness but as a show of guile and prudence. Velena Rose was a leader who had survived a direct threat to her life and she had taken positive action by installing Leonora as a representative early on, to avoid such a calamitous event as Nimbus losing their Governor. The public not only welcomed Leonora with open arms but they also revered Velena for persisting in the face of such great adversity, when others may have stood down. As one of the few female members of the cabinet, any show of strength was invaluable at swaying public perception. They saw her as a woman who had given up her peace of mind and her freedom for her people, not once had it looked like the backwards step towards self-preservation that it really was.

Leonora broke the silence. ‘It is bad enough that this little tryst is taking place here at all, let alone for you to be seen in the same company as this, this…’

‘No one will be seeing, Leonora.’

‘Why not just get an emissary to drop the credits off?’

‘Because
your
presence lends this situation a certain weight. It will remind him what is at stake. He will do as he is told.’

‘I just do not like him.’

‘Neither do I, but he is indomitably purposeful, professional and discrete. Three qualities rare in any man.’

Leonora took her drink and walked over to the bag of credits. ‘So we are just to pay him and ask him to set this all up?’

‘No Leo, we are going to order him. Asking is for the electorate. We order.’

They both took a drink.

‘Has he killed that soldier?’

‘All four of them.’

‘How?’

‘As requested. Harpoon. An ugly way to go. It should get the reaction we want.’

Leonora looked at the table, ‘Is that where his body is going to go?’

The table seemed to grow in the room that suddenly felt slightly smaller and claustrophobic.

‘Yes and then we can transport it, ah, him for a military funeral with full honours.’

‘The wings?’

‘As discussed.’

Leonora frowned. ‘Can I ask you something?’

‘Of course, as my Chief Aide I would expect nothing less.’

‘Will this work?’ Leonora was clearly uncomfortable asking the question.

The Governor sipped at her rum. The amber fluid felt unctuous on her lips and burned a trail of warmth across her tongue and palate.

‘That all depends Leo.’

‘That is a politician’s answer Governor, ever thought of running for office?’

The Governor laughed and went over to put an arm around Leonora’s shoulder.

‘Yes, it will work. Nimbus will lap it up, I can use this as a catalyst to suggest what was a few years ago unthinkable.’

‘You mean endorse between the Lowlands and Edgelands.’

‘Bring the sky and earth together?’

‘Yes. But you have always opposed this. I am not sure the public will buy you changing your stance. That you would suggest easy flight for the masses seems preposterous. The winged elite, your key supporters, have always been against it.’

‘That’s where Drake comes in. Imagine what an ex Slayer’s attempt on my life will do. Whilst I am seen to be in the midst of trying to make the world a better place the Lowland scum will come flying in and prove exactly why that is such a bad idea.’

‘Are you sure he will get involved?’

‘He already is.’

Leonora looked into her drink, ‘I do not think that will be enough to explain your u turn?’

‘Of course it will. Both you and I know the Nimbus population will love the soap opera along with anything that comes out of my mouth thereafter. Remember last time? Besides, I will only be endorsing the movement, as I said, Drake can crush it for us, before it even takes off, so to speak.’

‘Pardon me for my doubts Governor but...’

‘Leo he’s an ex Slayer, all military muscle and machismo mud. It will be easy manipulating him, almost cruel in fact.’

‘He is dangerous,’ said Leonora, her brow still creased.

‘Maybe, but he will play along. I know he will. He is bitter about the loss. The sacrifices. The deaths. Bethscape. There is hatred in there and that will blind him. He is a selfish loner with nothing to fight for, so let’s give him something. Then he will fall in line soon enough.’

Leonora sighed and faintly shook her head.

Governor Rose softened her tone. ‘Trust me on this Leo. Think of the public sympathy after another foiled attempt, the Bethscape hangover gone for good. Think of where this will put us with the voters. Me soaring in the popularity ratings and putting an end to all this talk about, about...outmoded travel.’

Leonora still looked unconvinced.

‘I will be rid of the last bastion of the old guard. The white winged alliances will fall and any subsequent uprising would be toothless. Voiceless. Pointless.’

‘And Drake?’

‘His foiled attempt on my life will be the catalyst for the public opinion I need.’

‘The people will ask for division. Security.’

‘The very things that brought me to office, that make us thrive as a nation.’

 
She clapped herself at the end of the sentence, smoothed at the pleat of her skirt and returned to her vigil at the window. She watched as her reflection disappeared, lost in the fog of her breath on the glass and took a final sip of rum.

‘But still...’ Leonora said, a knock on the door interrupting them.

‘Hush now.’ The Governor turned, set her glass down with a soft thud on the smooth damask and gently drew her cold, painted, manicured fingers across the immaculate linen as she walked across the room. It had the feel of soft cool skin. She nodded and opened the same internal door Leonora had entered, her booted feet clacked noisily on the marble tiles of the ornate meeting room floor as she left.

Leonora went to pour herself another drink before inviting Vedett in, the only discernible sound, the clack of the internal door being locked from the other side.