by Alan Baxter
“You didn’t call me back and you didn’t turn up this morning. Your job is hanging by a thread, Johanssen.”
“I’m sorry, Terry. I’m onto something here. I was on it all night.”
“It better be the story of the fucking century!”
David laughed. “You know what, it could be. I’ve uncovered this - I don’t know, this group of some kind. They’re powerful and they’re messing with people. I watched them shoot a guy in the head, for fuck’s sake.”
“This sounds like bullshit to me, you drunken bastard.”
“No, really, this could be massive. Trust me, Terry, yeah? Just give me a couple of days on this.”
“Did you go to the police?”
David winced. “Yeah. Yeah, I did. Probably nothing they can do, but I gave my statement. But I don’t want to let this go.”
Terry sighed. “Don’t spend the next coupla days pissed. I want you back in here the day after tomorrow and I want a story that blows my fucking socks off.”
David leaned his head back, exhaled loudly. “Thanks, Terry. Really, thanks. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”
“Yeah.”
The line went dead. David held the phone to his ear, listening to the silence. Lily. Was that real? It had certainly felt real. More so than anything ever had before.
It was another hot, muggy day. He showered, standing in cold jets of water, trying to think straight. The board was broken. He needed to be done with all this. He needed to leave all this stuff behind, to close this chapter with Michael. Whatever Lily was, she was right. He had been drawn into this thing and couldn’t walk away until it was finished. Michael, whatever else he was, was a cold blooded killer. Whatever this company was, it was getting away with murder.
David would strike a blow. He would kill Michael. That was the one thing he could do to finish this. And it might be the last thing he ever did, but so fucking what? He was a useless drunk worth more to his boys dead than alive. If he somehow survived today, he would have that talk with Stella. But it was the least likely resolution, and that was fine by him.
*
An hour later he stood in a back room, surrounded by boxes of chips and peanuts. A suave young man stared at him laconically, flanked by two hulking Samoans.
“You finally visit and it’s for something like this, fucken?”
“Come on, Amir,” David said, eyeing the Samoans nervously. “You kinda owe me a favour.”
Amir smiled. “You were kind to us in not breaking that story. But we were kind to your bank account in return. I don’t think anyone owes anyone anything.”
David shrugged. “No, fair point. But I really need a favour here.”
Amir raised one eyebrow, sucking on his teeth. “This is a big favour, fucken.”
“I know.”
“It’ll cost you.”
“How much?”
Amir continued sucking his teeth, staring hard at David. “Tell you what. Because I like you I’ll give you this thing. No money now, I know you’re worth less than my grandmother in Baalbek.” The Samoans laughed as Amir smiled. David agreed with a rueful expression. “So I do this for favour.” He ran a hand back over his slick hair. “You owe me big favour now, yes?”
“Well, I don’t really know what kind of favour I can owe you, but sure. I’ll do my best.”
Somewhere deep inside, David knew he was making a deal with the Devil. He knew that one day this would come back to bite him in the arse. Then again, he was in serious doubt that there would be any more days after this one, so what the fuck.
Amir nodded. “Okay.” He pulled keys from his pocket and unlocked a safe in the corner of the room. When he turned back he held a pistol, malevolent anodised steel shining dully in the wan fluorescents overhead. He popped the clip and showed David the bullet nestling angrily in the top, silver and brass. “Nine millimetre. Seventeen in there.” He clicked it back into the butt of the pistol, turned it over. Taking the top of the barrel he pumped the mechanism, racking a round. “Now it’s ready.” He thumbed a small lever on the left hand side of the grip. “That’s the safety off. Don’t forget to leave it on, but don’t forget to turn it off if you need to use it!” He handed the weapon to David.
It was cold and heavy in his hand. It felt like power. He flicked the safety back on and turned it left and right, trying to get used to the weight of it. It was heavier than he’d expected.
“You need more ammo?” Amir asked.
David shrugged. “I have no idea.”
Amir went back to the safe and returned with a second clip. “Here, take this anyway. What the fuck you need for gun? You’re a reporter.”
“I have something that needs to be settled.”
Amir nodded. “Fair enough. If you fire that, even once, I never want to see it again. Nothing will connect me to that weapon, so don’t bring it back here if you touch that trigger.”
“Sure. Thanks.”
*
David steadied his nerves, the pistol a hard weight in his waistband. He felt a strange calmness. Lily’s description of the situation lingered coolly in his mind, empowering him. She was right, he was right. The cold steel power of the semi-automatic in his belt was right. Michael was wrong. Boris’s death was wrong. He was an instrument of vengeance and justice. One thing in his life would be worthwhile. One thing would atone for the fuck-up he had become. One act would set him apart.
Hot breath in his ear sent shivers through his balls. “Well done, David.”
He turned his head to look at her and she put one hand behind his head, pressing a hard, passionate kiss on his lips, her body sliding across his. Somewhere inside he laughed at the thought of striding in there for vengeance with a hard on. The kiss disengaged, and he opened his eyes. She was nowhere to be seen. He turned and strode to the steel steps leading up to the peeling door.
He wondered if the door would be locked this time, but it swung open easily. He drew the gun from his belt and held it tightly along one thigh, flipped off the safety. Stepping out into the open warehouse, he raised the gun, eyes scanning for Michael.
The main room was like before, full of people indulging in decadence. As David appeared they all stopped what they were doing. No one looked especially surprised. David swung the pistol left and right, scanning faces. He looked up to the mezzanine level, about to mount the stairs. If anyone moved he had every intention of shooting them. No one did.
Michael materialised in front him, appearing out of nothing. He was sad. “You really can’t walk away, can you?”
David roared in anger to cover his knee-buckling fear and squeezed the trigger again and again. The gun bucked and weaved, kicking with more power than he ever expected. Two scarlet explosions burst out of Michael’s chest and a bright red streak tore across his cheek. Further bullets cracked into plaster and whined off the metal of the mezzanine. No one moved.
Michael stepped forward and took the pistol by the barrel. He squeezed and twisted, crumpling the steel like paper, and wrenched it from David’s fingers. The wide bleeding gap across his cheek smoothed over with unblemished skin. He gestured behind himself and most of the people in the room fell over, unconscious. Four strong, beautiful men, two of them naked, were the only ones unaffected. They came to stand beside Michael.
David dropped to his knees, nursing twisted fingers, sobbing. “Who the fuck are you?” His eyes were heavy and red.
Michael’s face was angry. “Who are we? Who the fuck do you think you are, David Johanssen? You’re nothing. You come in here with a gun?”
One of the naked men leaned forward. “Control your anger, brother. He’s touched.”
Michael growled low in his throat, leaning down to look at David as if seeing him for the first time. He pressed one hot, smooth palm to David’s forehead. With a louder growl of anger he straightened up, yelling into the air. “Lilith!”
A deep, husky laughter filled the room and David pissed his pants. Lily stepped up beside him, ran one han
d lazily through his hair. “Come on, Michael, it was fun,” she said, smiling a perfect smile. “He came with a gun!”
Four of the five men looked angry, though there was something underlying that seemed almost amused. Only Michael was pure rage. “You can not play games like this, Lilith. People die!”
She barked a laugh, cold and mean. “You think that’s some kind of deterrent to me? You fool. You lapdog. I love fucking with you and yours. What do I care if humans get hurt?”
Michael backhanded her across the cheek. Her head whipped to one side, only to return with blood on her lip and fury in her dark eyes. Michael grabbed David’s hair, pulling his head up, forcing him to look at her. “You know who this is?”
One of the other’s said gently, ‘Obviously he doesn’t, brother.”
Michael sneered. “This, David, is Lilith. The screech owl. The serpent. The downfall of fucking man! Sometimes called Lamashtu.”
David sobbed. Not again. Not the same fucking creature still ruining him. “I don’t know what’s happening any more.”
Michael pushed him away, making him fall onto his side on the cool concrete. “You never did, Johanssen.”
Lilith laughed again. Her skin darkened and she expanded, swelling in every direction, her beautiful face twisted into something hideous. The five men grew with her, their skin golden as clothes melted away. Huge white wings swung out from their backs and they fell upon Lilith as she snarled. David cowered, foetal on the floor, crying as he watched them tear her apart. Broken and bloody she laughed again, thrashing left and right. “Such fun to play with you all again!’ She burst apart in twists of dark smoke and was gone.
The five men, naked, golden, beautiful, stood before David. Their wings overlapped behind them, reminding David absurdly of the sails of the Opera House. Michael stood in the middle, his eyes dark pools of anger. “You stupid little man.”
David stayed down, shaking all over. He felt like a tiny leaf being carried through the crashing white water of a raging river. “How can this be happening?”
“How? It’s all you lot. You make all of this.” Michael gestured angrily with one hand, seeming to encompass the whole world.
David shook his head. “You killed him. He was just a lost homeless guy. Why would you do that?”
Michael sighed. “Your friend Boris? His name was Raphael. We did all we could for him.”
“He was an . . . he was . . . like you?”
“It’s not only humans that break, Johanssen. You people and your world, you can break anything. Sometimes you break our kind too. Nothing is immune to madness. Those of us who can’t take it are placed in safety here, hidden in human bodies. The stamping man? The pale man? They’re ours. Looked after by us.”
“Can’t you take care of them in . . . your own place?”
Michael sneered. “Can you imagine one of our kind, with our power, with a broken mind? The best we can do is give them space here in a mortal form. This is a good city, a nice place. We care for them here.”
“They live as stinking, homeless bums. That’s cruel!”
“We tried giving them a peaceful place, away from people, but the isolation broke them further. The city gives them distraction.”
“They live here like animals.”
“Better we just euthanise them?”
“That’s what you did anyway!”
“Only because I had to. Sometimes they’re strong and they start to remember. Sometimes we can hide them again, sometimes we can’t. Raphael was too strong. Our system here failed him.”
“So now what’s happened to him?”
Michael’s eyes hardened, coldness closing over them. “That’s a concept you couldn’t comprehend.”
One of the others leaned forward. “Michael, it’s not his fault. With Raphael, Lilith. None of it’s his fault.”
Michael turned with a snarl. “None of it, Uriel? Really?”
“He’s just a human. Just a curious human.”
Michael shook his head. “These fucking people, all the trouble they cause. We can’t let him go, we can’t let him back among them.”
David stayed on the floor, his mind spinning, desperately trying to process everything. The only thought that kept repeating in his mind was, You fucking fool. You fucking fool. He watched Michael and Uriel stare into each other’s eyes for a long time. Eventually Uriel lowered his gaze, defeated. David whimpered.
Michael turned back to him. He seemed sad as well as angry now. “You really should have just walked away, Johanssen.”
Images flashed across David’s mind. Michael striding out into the alley, raising his gun. Let’s just say that I’m a company man, here to take care of some business. “You tempted me as much as she did,” David cried, his voice weak and tear-soaked. “You’re the one who walked around all kingshit. You’re the one who should have made a better job of taking care of Boris. Of Raphael.”
Michael pursed his lips. “Maybe.”
David’s phone rang, shrill and sudden in the echoing warehouse. Michael sneered, raising his hand. Uriel reached out, staying Michael’s arm. “Answer your phone, David,” he said.
“What?”
“Answer your phone.”
Michael dropped his arm resignedly. “This is fucking ridiculous.”
The phone kept ringing.
“Answer it.”
David fumbled the phone from his pocket. THE BITCH. “Answer it,” said Uriel as Michael scowled.
He pressed the button. “Stella.”
“Oh, David, thank fuck! You said you’d ring. David, you sounded suicidal last night. I thought you’d fucking hung yourself. What would I have told the boys?”
Tears started from his eyes again. “I’m sorry, Stella.”
“You have to sort yourself out, David. Please, for all our sakes. The boys don’t want your life insurance.”
David avoided the eyes above him, feeling like a fool as his ex-wife ranted at him over the line. “Listen, Stella, I’m really sorry, okay.” He couldn’t bear to talk to her. He didn’t want her to know anything about any of this. “I’ll be fine. I’ll call you back in an hour or two, okay?” He hated the lie, felt it strike at his heart.
“David?”
“I promise.” He killed the connection before she heard the sob he couldn’t hold down.
He met the eyes over him. Uriel reached down, helped him to stand. His knees could barely support him. “There’s still love there,” the angel said.
Michael let his breath out explosively.
David looked from Michael back to Uriel. “There is still love there,” the angel repeated, “on both sides.”
David barked a humourless laugh. “Love? It’s a fucking nightmare. My marriage is a sham. I’ve damaged it beyond repair.”
Uriel smiled. “Where there is any vestige of love, there is hope.”
Michael turned away. He gestured to the people lying unconscious around the room and they faded away. The beds and couches, TVs and computer games, drifted into nothingness like mist in a gentle breeze. Uriel smiled again, squeezed David’s shoulder. “We’ll just go somewhere else,” he said softly.
The four angels disengaged from the ground as the room grew visible through them. They lifted up and away and dissipated like smoke. Michael turned, he and David now facing each other in an empty warehouse. Michael shook his head. “You fucking humans.” He faded away.
David felt broken and euphoric at the same time. He felt empty, astounded, insignificant. He felt spared even as the urine through his trousers cooled, sticking the material to his thigh. The gun lay on the floor at his feet, a barely identifiable ball of crushed metal. He picked it up, hefting it on one trembling hand. This would have to stay with him now, a trophy of sorts. A trophy to remind him of the anti-trophy he had smashed against his wall. And proof that all this had really happened. If he woke up tomorrow and this wasn’t anywhere to be found, he’d know he was having messed up alcoholic’s dreams. If it was there everyt
hing would be more than real. And he would owe Amir a favour, which meant his troubles were far from over.
He turned from the room, stumbling out through the office into the oppressive heat of the day. The alley seemed fresh. He was dishevelled and dirty, stinking of piss. Unshaven. He looked and felt like a homeless man.
Rolling the crumpled ball of steel around on his palm, wondering what the hell he would write for Terry, he tried to decide if he should have a drink or call Stella back first.
A Strong Urge To Fly
Jeremy watched trees whip by the train window, a grey-green blur, and wondered if they weren’t a metaphor for his life. Zooming past too quickly to appreciate. He wanted to feel in charge of his own destiny and this journey marked the beginning of exactly that. His father had been gruff, but grudgingly respectful of his decision. His mother, of course, had been positively distraught, but she was the problem, after all. This time he’d stood up to her. You shouldn’t upset your mother, his father had said emptily. But Jeremy had done it anyway and he regretted nothing. In the end, his mother had given in, even helped him find a guest house.
The train slowed. Beston-on-Sea said the sign, black paint on rust-riddled white. A tiny place, far from home. He only needed to endure it for six months, maybe a year, surviving in a rented flat on his own, then his point would be made, his autonomy demonstrated. He could start to live like an adult at last. He might even like it here and decide to stay. Regardless, he needed to emerge from under his mother’s over-protective wing before he was thirty, and he didn’t have much time.
He stepped onto the platform to be buffeted by a briny wind. As he pulled up his collar and dragged his suitcase behind him a voice called out, “Hey ho!”
Jeremy turned to see a round man, bald head and baggy grey suit, waddling towards him, gripping a battered briefcase. The man’s trouser legs clapped in the breeze as he extended his free hand. “Donald Bosley. Don’t get many strangers here in the winter months. Of course, come summer it’s nothing but strangers!”
Jeremy shook Bosley’s hand. It was clammy and damp. “I’m here for the start of term next week. I’m . . . ”
