Blaze of Chaos

by C. J. Strange

  “There’s a reason I fucking know all this, and if you’re too thick to have figured it out by now, hang about and let me enlighten you.”

  I take another swig of my lager, raise it high, and proudly aver:

  “Because I was there. And let me tell you something straight: B.L.A.Z.E. is still very much alive.”

  22 Penny’s “Oh Shit” Moment

  “Do hurry up, darling. My truly magnificent fortune may not last forever…”

  Rhys can complain as much as he wants about my cautious, careful approach to the trapdoor I’m easing open above me. He’s not the one barreling quite literally headfirst into an unknown location and scenario. For all I know, the knife across my throat will be so swift, my mouth won’t be the opening my scream spurts from.

  The late afternoon glow bleeds through the crack, warm and inviting as it pours across my face. A breeze rustles the long grass concealing the trapdoor. Pivoting myself in such a way that I can release my baseball bat from its holster, I grip it in my business-hand and shove the trapdoor the rest of the way, letting it fall open against the thick undergrowth.

  Bring it, wank-nuggets.

  Nothing happens.

  At my rear, Rhys sighs in impatience. “Are we quite done, Little Miss Warrior Princess?”

  “Let’s not forget I don’t know who the heck you are,” I respond with an equal splash of sourness, carefully hauling myself up out of the trapdoor. He follows suit and straightens up to his full height, lean and slender muscles flexing humbly beneath his cardigan and button-up shirt as he stretches them out.

  “Ah, much better. I honestly can’t stand being underground for that long.”

  “Some of us have gotten used to it,” I mutter, craning my neck around to check our surroundings. His lack of vigilance has done nothing to ease my own. When I glance back at him, he’s staring at me as if I just this moment told him I actually prefer American football to real football, not that he looks the type of bloke to even understand there might be any kind of a difference between the two sports.

  “Living underground?” he asks, indignant. “What a sorry existence.”

  Relatively convinced of the safety of our current position, I finally scoff, turn, and provide him with what he seems to want: my undivided attention. “Many aren’t granted the privilege of choice,” I tell him flatly; I’ve no time for a happy-go-lucky look through whatever his rose-tinted sunglasses he’s tripping on. “You and I are lucky—we pass. I’ve had friends who fear for their lives every time they step outside, because they don’t even pass as human anymore. They can’t hide in plain sight like we can.”

  “And why should they?” he retorts, not losing a single spark of that borderline-grating cheer and charm.

  “Because murdering an Anomaly in cold blood could no longer be illegal in Britain come Wednesday, Shields.” My tone is cutting, a razor-sharp edge to my serrated statement. “Our very existence is a criminal offense.”

  “And what’s new there?”

  It isn’t his words that cause me to gape at him, open-mouthed and dumbstruck like some sort of prat. It’s the amused little giggle he gift-wraps them with.

  “Civil injustice is our birthright, little bird,” he continues before I have the chance to verbally or physically reply. He leans comfortably back against an enormous oak, smirking at me with that annoyingly chiseled face of his. “History is both a wonderful and terrible thing, doomed to repeat itself again and again in blissfully ignorant cycles. The good, and the bad. The triumphs, and the failures. In the fifties and sixties, the black communities of America rose up and demanded their freedom from the prejudice and discrimination of those more powerfully-seated by society. In the seventies and eighties, the gay communities fought the same battle, and in the two-thousands, religious and transgender communities. Now, sadly, it is our turn to be the scapegoat of the imperious, and our turn to ensure our descendants don't suffer the same injustices as we've had to.”

  I continue to stare at him, my lip curling with a touch of disgust. “And you don’t dare to dream of a world where children who are born feeling different won’t face a lifetime of fighting for their own basic human rights? Just so the next generation can fight another battle in the same ongoing war?” I shake my head. “No, this cycle ends, mate. And it ends with us—with this generation.”

  Rhys is beaming. “Ah,” he says, puffing up his chest. “To finally learn to live harmoniously and peacefully, side-by-side as one human race, without stabbing or bombing or nuking the ever-loving fuck out of each other.” He winks. “That would be a glorious achievement. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes.” My answer is determined, spoken through tightly-gritted teeth. “And I believe it can be done.”

  “You believe?”

  “I know.”

  To my annoyance, the pretty, posh git winks at me again. “Good girl.”

  “I ain’t your girl, son.”

  “I see that. You’re quite feisty.” Rhys snaps his head up suddenly, his demeanor causing me to stiffen to attention again. “Ah, it appears my cohort has finally decided to join us…”

  My fist tightens around the grip of my bat and I brace myself again for the possibility of an ambush, but the entire reaction feels wrong. Whereas a character such as this Rhys Shields fellow would typically trigger all sorts of red alerts and alarm bells in my brain, they’ve all been quelled by the strangely nagging sense that I know him from somewhere.

  Somewhere safe.

  “There you are, Tesla, old girl. Really, to keep us waiting all this time…”

  I follow his gaze, but I’m unable to locate his scientifically-monikered comrade. I anticipate an invisibility Magick, or perhaps a shapeshifter of sorts. Instead, the underbrush rustles and parts, and what appears to be a rather mundane house cat pokes her nose out from between branches. She blinks, enormous sea-green eyes focused intensely on Rhys.

  “Miss Penny clearly has some sort of suicidal business she's supposed to be attending to,” he’s prattling on in her general direction, “and we already know she doesn’t like to be out in the open for too long.”

  The tiny Maine Coon glances over at me. She glances back at Rhys. Then, she mews, a pathetic broken stutter of a cry, almost more of a squeak than anything else.

  “Another Anomaly?”

  Rhys furrows his brow at me, baffled. “No. She’s a cat.”

  “Just a cat?”

  “My my, aren’t we suspicious today?”

  “I’m suspicious every day, Shields. It’s kept me alive and kicking so far.” Despite the acidic barbs I’m enjoying tossing back and forth with this peculiar newcomer, there’s nothing but warmth in me as I regard the feline. She’s absolutely adorable, her little pink nose and whiskers twitching as she gingerly plants one sock-furred paw down on the dirt our side of the shrub line, then the other. “Hm, so, I guess I was right. You do own a cat.”

  “Yes, I do.” Rhys’ lips twist in amusement. “Why? Do I look like the pussy sort?”

  “You one-hundred percent look like a crazy fucking cat person, yes,” is my deadpan response.

  “This isn’t the first time I’ve heard that.”

  I watch the cat, Tesla, pick her way across the dry leaves and twigs toward him, her ring-striped tail shooting up like a furry flag to greet her friend. “So,” I say as he crouches and curls a hand about her chin to scratch beneath it, “I’m presuming this is the aforementioned trusted colleague you had waiting for us?”

  “My most trusted colleague, indeed.” Rhys beams up at me. “Life on the road does have a tendency to whittle them down to the keepers, wouldn’t you agree?”

  I’m too exhausted to stop the weak burst of laughter that pushes the air out of my lungs. Or maybe it’s to mask the stab of pain at thinking of the circumstances under which my last brigade was ‘whittled down’.

  “I can’t quite tell which side of the wall you’re on between brilliant and mad,” I admit aloud, and his grin broadens.r />
  “Ah, now that? That is proof there are some walls we should never, ever erect.”

  As silly as it sounds, my breath catches in my throat for a moment or two. It’s the way he says that word, the manner in which he rolls the ‘R’ and pauses so sharply between the ‘C’ and the ‘T’, that sends a single shiver down my spine. His eyes, warm and dark and deep, capture mine, and I find myself completely unable to look away. And not of his volition—of my own.

  My stomach squirms, a sensation that travels down to nestle uncomfortably between my thighs.

  … say something, Starling, you total and utter twat.

  But, as per the norm when I find myself drowning in a situation I’ve no hope handling alone, it isn’t up to me to fill that awkward silence. The world has granted me a guardian angel, over six feet and nineteen stone of solid muscle and sass, and—without fail—it always shows up exactly when I need it to.

  The familiar rush of air across my back is my first clue. I sense his presence long before he appears, slamming the brakes on his barely subsonic sprint to screech to a halt right between myself and Rhys. Even though he has his back to me, I can tell from the way he’s standing that he’s in full-on what I like to call ‘grizzly bear mode’.

  Oh, bollocks.

  “That’s fecking far enough there, pansy,” growls Duncan, his voice a dark and foreboding threat. Somewhere behind him, Rhys’ cat makes an angry, strangled noise that doesn’t sound in any way content. “Not a baw’hair closer to the lass. I dunnae want to get your wee granny cardigan all torn up and drenched in your own blood—it’ll hurt the resale value, and it looks worth a tidy quid or two.”

  “Duncan—” I start, but Rhys’ tongue is faster and has more to say than even my own.

  “I say, I strongly suggest you wash that mouth out with soap and water, and perhaps don’t stop at your face?” he adds with an almost comical wince, tapping one long finger against his close-shaven chin. “After the display I just witnessed, I believe treating Penny here as any sort of damsel in distress to be rescued is a trifle unfair, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Aye.” I can hear from his tone that Duncan is fuming, the rage on his face only intensifying when Rhys used my real name. “And what kind of a display did you just witness, laddie?”

  “Dee.”

  This time, I don’t use my everyday voice. I use my lieutenant voice. The burly Scotsman senses my change in demeanor, and his upper body deflates a little as he twists to look at me.

  “This is Rhys Shields, a fellow Anomaly. Shields, this is Dee, my right-hand. Play nice, both of you, or I’ll knock your heads together. I swear, I’m not in the mood for this shit right now.”

  “What happened?” asks Duncan bluntly.

  I sigh. I owe him an explanation, at the very least. For all I know, the poor bastard's been worried sick about me since I left. “It's my own fault. I went AWOL, there was—I had something I needed to look into.”

  “Aye, the tip about your pa. The obvious bait.” Duncan’s stern demeanor still doesn’t waver. “The wee’yin already caught me up, and we already figured you out, lass.”

  “You did?” I’m trapped on the fence between sheepish and resigned. “I suppose it was fairly obvious. For what it’s worth, it was nothing I couldn’t handle, and I’m still standing at least?” I offer him an easy-going laugh in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, but his face remains a stoic, impassive mask, less than impressed with my antics. My chest heaves with another heavy exhale.

  “I'm sorry, Dee. I really am. I’m sorry, and I won’t put my personal life ahead of the brigade again, I promise. I'm going to apologize to O.P., too—as soon as we get back.”

  At last, after what feels like an age, Duncan's expression softens. “I appreciate it, but it’s nae us you should be apologizing to.”

  The realization hits me hard and fast like a double-decker bus.

  Alfie.

  “Oh my god,” I murmur, blindsided. “Does he think I ditched him?”

  Duncan’s silent nod confirms my fears. I’ve known Alfie since we were climbing trees and skinning our knees together. I know better than anyone that while he likes to act well hard, he’s basically a burnt, crispy marshmallow shell with a soft, squishy center. And that invulnerable soul has one massive, gaping, glaring vulnerability that I'm only too aware of—

  “Miss Penny?”

  I snap out of my own head and back into the real world. Both men (and, for some reason, the cat) are staring at me. It was Rhys who addressed me verbally, and Duncan appears to be waiting on me to answer whatever question the posh Londoner may have originally posed.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I was inquiring as to what sort of community event you would choose to miss out on to attend your possible funeral this afternoon?” asks Rhys, with delightful eloquence considering what a complete tosser he’s being. “While I’m not one for socializing, you certainly seem the type to enjoy a good knees-up.”

  I scowl at him, mildly. “Typical bloke, with all the assumptions,” I jab back, before providing a more serious response. “It’s just an event at my mate’s new local, the Faux Globe Inn, down on the Sun Treasure campsite?” I steal a glance over at Duncan; he’s watching me closely, content to allow me to divulge as much information to this stranger as I feel is necessary and appropriate. I may be offering more than he would have been comfortable with, but there’s something about Rhys I can't quite put my finger on. Something that drives me to trust him. “It’s just a pub night, nothing fancy. But it’s the sort of thing he takes… pretty seriously.”

  “The Faux Globe?”

  Rhys’ entire tone of voice has changed. No, his entire mien has changed. No, the entire atmosphere of this entire situation has changed, and not for the positive.

  “Yes,” I say hesitantly, exchanging worried glances with Duncan. “But why do you say it like it’s the name of a horror movie?”

  “Oh, no, it’s a lovely little gaff, really,” Rhys is babbling, “any night of the year except tonight.”

  “Why?” I demand with more tenacity, more torque. “What’s happening tonight?”

  It might be because we were just facing down dozens of armed government agents and he barely batted an eyelash, but the seriousness with which Rhys levels his eyes with mine immediately conveys to me the sheer weight of the situation we may have just walked headfirst into.

  When he finally speaks, he only says two words, and while I have no idea what they mean, there’s no ignoring the weight they carry.

  “Operation Blazebait.”

  23 Penny’s Long Drive

  “For the sixty-ninth time, Shields—what the bloody buggering hell is Operation Blazebait!?”

  I must admit, I’m starting to clue into why Duncan thinks I must be mental for trusting this bloke. He’s an absolute basket case, as crazy as he is good-looking, the latter of which is not something I'm attesting to by the way. At least, not to anybody else.

  “Isn’t it amusing,” replies Rhys from the passenger’s seat, “how sixty-nine is the first number your mind chose to settle on?” He’s still flicking and rummaging through the various compartments of our stolen ride, the key for which he was lucky enough to discover sitting atop the rear tire. Either side of us, tree branches whip against the windows as the tiny sedan barrels down a country lane almost a hair too narrow for it.

  From the backseat, Duncan growls audibly.

  “Does your side have airbags?” I ask our new recruit. Regardless of how recently we became acquainted, it’s about time he learned how I run this show.

  “I’m not sure this vehicle has any airbags, in all honesty, darling.”

  “Then answer my fucking question or I swear, I'm going to ram us into something.”

  “Aye, she will,” Duncan chimes in from behind us. He leans in, putting every pound of his weight on the back of Rhys’ seat, his inhuman strength tilting it forward uncomfortably. I wrestle with a smirk. “Trust me. She’s r
adge, that lass.”

  Rhys sighs, exasperated, but in all fairness he’s had a pretty solid run. He avoided answering me the first time by declaring we needed to leave, to head to the Faux Globe, and he would fill us in on the way there. The second time, he was perusing whether the owner of the Ford or the Vauxhall in the car park was more likely to have left a key somewhere for a friend to find. The third and fourth were interrupted by his cat, whom he then proceeded to have a two-way conversation with.

  I believe the only reason Duncan hasn’t throttled him yet is because I haven’t given the order.

  And the only reason I haven’t given the order is because I swear I’ve already found the patience to deal with Rhys Shield’s unique brand of bullshit before. I just have no idea when, or where, or how. That’s the part I’m still trying to figure out.

  “Operation Blazebait,” Rhys states once more for the record, or just because he really bloody enjoys the sound of his own voice. “KING’s delicately-tailored tactical response to B.L.A.Z.E.’s northern headquarters being blown sky-high last weekend. Or, at least, their preemptive response to any vengeance or action members of the Magickal Left may be considering.”

  Driving has suddenly become insanely difficult. My attention refuses to focus on anything other than the words coming out of Rhys’ mouth.

  “What?” I finally manage to splutter, gracelessly.

  Rhys just grins. From his lap, Tesla mews at the same pitch as if answering me.

  “My apologies,” says Rhys, “I wasn’t aware we’re pretending we hadn’t heard about B.L.A.Z.E.’s demise via the good old grapevine. I can continue to feign my ignorance if that’s more comfortable for either one of you?”

  “That’s all right,” I grit back. “You’ve started, you may as well finish.”

  “Yes, well,” Rhys mumbles, his voice resonant with a sincerity that wasn't there before, “while the finish is typically my favorite part, I’m afraid in this instance my tongue will likely bring you little joy. Which is quite uncharacteristic for me, I must admit.”