“Flesh and coin,” said Ma Mulrone to the man in the armor. He nodded.
Paulie Small smiled, a mouthful of maggots and rot. Then, with a snarl, he was free of his bed.
Jim’s stupor broke. Some part of him, the part that would always be a policeman, even in the nether realms, leapt and tried to hold the psychopath…but his hands passed right through.
He’s just a ghost, still.
But so was Charlie Dawes; just a ghost.
Paulie Small threw himself at Charlie Dawes, despite being naked and Charlie Dawes armored and armed. The crazed man attacked his victim with his insane fury in death as he had in life.
But this time, when he touched Charlie Dawes, it did not end in sorrow, but…
Nothing.
The instant they touched, they were gone. Both gone.
No chorus of Shadowman from the dying.
No fog.
Just a puzzled, scared detective and an old, dangerous woman.
*
“Where did they go?” he asked. Jim’s voice shook, and he didn’t try to stop it.
“You never did need to know,” said Ma Mulrone. She held up a hand and stilled his next, and next, and next question.
“Walk me to my car?” she said, as though nothing had happened.
And as far as Jim could tell…nothing had. No sign of the fog. No moisture on the floor, no witnesses, nothing.
Just an old woman who’d conned him out of his car.
You know that’s not true, Jim, a small bastard part of his mind told him.
But he pushed it down. It is true, and it will be, in the dark of night, when I wake from dreams I can’t explain. An old woman conned me out of a car, and that’s all there ever was.
All there ever was.
XII.
The Bridge
Charlie Dawes was no longer a shadow.
His face wasn’t pleasant, though. It was set in rage, shaded within a great, crested helm. He held the bridge.
“I killed you once. I’ll kill you again.”
“My world, Paulie Small,” said the man named Charlie. A man who’d once, on ecstasy and too much beer, thought he could talk to a psychopath. A man who’d loved life, lived life, loved friends, and lost a friend in a moment of utter insanity.
But Charlie Dawes was that man no longer.
He was Shadowman, a dead thing in armor, but this time, with a face. Himself.
This was his time.
“This is my world. My rules. This is my vengeance and my justice. It carries over.”
“Fuck you and fuck your rules,” said Paulie Small, iron helm muffling his voice. His heavy iron armor, too heavy for many men, but Paulie Small was strong. Terribly strong.
And Charlie Dawes was a shade no longer.
Paulie Small rushed forward, full of crazed rage and strength even in death. Rushed the castle, shouldered into Charlie Dawes before the man could bring his great sword to bear and cut Paul Small down for good.
Small’s heavy fist crashed into the black armor that Charlie fashioned not from steel, but from his agony.
And with each blow upon that armor, Charlie felt no pain, only release.
Every time that Small brought his rage against the armor, he cried out in agony, until, finally, his fury brought him to his knees.
In his iron armor, his heavy, old, rusted suit, Paulie Small breathed heavily. Through the slit in his helm he could only see Charlie’s black, shadowy boots upon the drawbridge to heaven’s castle.
With a great roar, Paulie Small threw himself upward, aiming to bring his helm into contact with Charlie’s, despite the terrible pain to himself that each contact caused.
But no more.
“No more.”Charlie brought the pommel down on the back on Paulie’s helm, knocking him to the wood.
“Fuck you,” spat Paulie, bloodied, inside his helm.
Charlie understood. Had always understood. For some, there was no redemption. No end to their rage. Some men would get up. Always, they would get up.
In the instant that Paulie pushed himself up again, Charlie stepped to one side and clove the man in two. Armor, flesh, bone.
And inside there was nothing but the charred remains of an evil man’s soul.
*
“You took my life. You took my life in death, too. Delirious when you died, you thought you were me…but you’re not. You’re Paulie Small. You’re a dark man. You’re nothing but a shadow…”
Charlie Dawes pulled away the tattered remnants of Paulie Small’s face.
He turned, to walk the bridge, lighter. As he walked, the bridge fell away beneath him. The castle, gone.
He walked from that was once a drawbridge and a moat and a great stone edifice into a summer’s wood. Birdsong and sunshine, at last, a gentle breeze. Behind him, unseen, the iron armor and the man within were swiftly overgrown with flowers and brambles, fern, nettle, saplings.
The bridge was gone. Paulie Small was gone, forevermore.
And beneath Charlie Dawes’s feet was just a trickling, meandering stream. His armor fell, too, until he sprang, with a smile, across the waters.
XIII.
Shadows on Running Water
“Mrs. Mulrone?”
“Don’t ask, Mr. Wayne, and I won’t have to lie.”
His own words, bounced back at him, sounded odd from the old woman’s mouth.
“I have to ask…I have to. I can’t…I know I’ll dream of this, and wake, and maybe…”
“It’ll drive you nuts?” said the old woman, as she lowered herself slowly into the passenger seat of Jim Wayne’s Ford.
“What did happen? Back there…the fog…the…there was a knight…and…”
“No, Mr. Wayne. There wasn’t.”
“I saw it. A shadow, but real.”
“Maybe we’re all just shadows,” said Ma Mulrone.
“I…Mrs. Mulrone…the face. The face you gave him.”
She raised one eyebrow as far as it could travel against the wrinkles of her forehead. “You gave him his face back…”
The eyebrow stayed there.
“But the ghost…the…thing in the bed…it…”
“Jim Wayne. Don’t ask daft questions and I won’t give you daft answers. You ain’t supposed to know everything. No man is.”
“You do? You…how do you live? How? I saw…I saw…”
Ma Mulrone nodded, but didn’t say one way or the other. She’d done what she came to do, and Jim Wayne was done, too. Sometimes a woman made mistakes, was all. Sometimes, you made a mistake, you had to let it sit. Sometimes, you had to make it right.
“Take the Land Rover. We’ll pick it up.”
Jim stared at the woman for a moment, then, shook his head.
“I think I’ll walk,” he said.
“Well, they say exchange is no robbery,” she said with a grin that didn’t look wholesome on her withered old face.
How old are you? he wanted to ask…but he didn’t.
She nodded, looked at him once more with that piercing, smart blue eye of hers. Said nothing, then tapped her son, her grandson, whatever, on the thigh. ‘Drive,’ she said.
He did.
Jim Wayne watched them leave in his police car, and knew for a fact he’d never see it again.
The policeman stared after his car, watched it take the long driveway, shingle, then, disappear into the trees.
He heard a wet grunt beside him when the car was gone. He looked down and saw the ugly dog, sitting, just behind him.
Shook his head. “Fuck me,” he said.
The dog didn’t say anything.
The Land Rover was right there, on the grass to one side of the long, graveled driveway. He didn’t doubt the keys were in it.
He looked at the dog.
“Walkies?”
The dog barked. He figured the walk would do him good. Jim started on the road home. It was a hell of a long way, but the dog didn’t seem to mind. He thought about telling it to get lost.
But then, he figured, an ugly dog wasn’t a bad trade for his peace of mind.
The dog ran ahead, came back, ran around his ankles. Fucking dog was happy.
He thought of Ma Mulrone saying exchange was no robbery. Looked at the dog running and laughed. Then, he laughed again, because it was light, still.
*
For some, the bridge is long, perilous. A rope bridge across a yawing chasm. For some, a simple step across a cool stream.
Cathy Redman walked through a forest, maybe a wood, gazing around her. She was aware she was dead, and that there is no coming back. But in the forest of her death, there was beauty. There were bluebells on the forest floor, leaves in the trees, and still, dappled shade. The air was cool and she wore a light dress. A younger woman, light and fleet of foot.
A butterfly fluttered before her eyes, like it was summer or late spring. There was a soft whisper of leaf upon leaf, and the symphony of branches rubbing against one another, like a bow on a violin. She walked in wonder, a woman full of curiosity, full of life. A woman who had never in life been bored, nor, in death.
The trees were thick, old. An ancient forest, untouched, like it had never felt the heavy footsteps of man on the deadfall and flora beneath her bare, painless feet.
I’m younger here, she thought.
She came to a small stream. On the other side, she saw, was a young man. A young man she felt she knew. He had a beautiful, somehow knowing, lopsided smile. She could not help but smile back.
He beckoned her, with just a wave of his hand. Fine fingers, she saw. Like a scholar, a writer, a man of music, maybe.
It was just a small stream. She skipped over, for a moment just a shadow on the water, and didn’t even get her feet wet.
The End
Also by Craig Saunders
Novels:
ALT-Reich
PIG (with Edward Lorn)
Ghost Voices
Highwayman
Hangman
The Dead Boy
Left to Darkness (The Oblivion Series #1)
Masters of Blood and Bone
Cold Fire
A Home by the Sea
RAIN
A Stranger's Grave
The Love of the Dead
Spiggot
Spiggot, Too
Vigil
BLOOD, DRUGS, TEA
Novellas:
The Lies of Angels
UNIT 731
Bloodeye
Insulation
The Walls of Madness
Days of Christmas
A Scarecrow to Watch over Her (The Mulrones: #1)
Death by a Mother's Hand (The Mulrones: #2)
Flesh and Coin (The Mulrones: #3)
Deadlift (The Mulrones: #4)
As Craig R. Saunders:
The Outlaw King (The Line of Kings Trilogy Book One)
The Thief King (The Line of Kings Trilogy Book Two)
The Queen of Thieves (The Line of Kings Trilogy Book Three)
Rythe Awakes (The Rythe Quadrilogy Book One)
The Tides of Rythe (The Rythe Quadrilogy Book Two)
Rythe Falls (The Rythe Quadrilogy Book Three)
Beneath Rythe (The Rythe Quadrilogy Book Four)
Short Fiction Collections:
The Cold Inside
Dead in the Trunk
Angels in Black and White
Dark Words
About the Author
Craig Saunders is the author of more than forty novels and novellas, including 'Masters of Blood and Bone', 'RAIN' and 'Deadlift'. He writes across many genres.
Craig lives in Norfolk, England, with his wife and children. He likes nice people and good coffee. Find out more on Amazon, or visit:
www.craigrsaunders.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/craigrsaundersauthor
@Grumblesprout
Flesh and Coin (The Mulrones Book 3) Page 10
