Raptor: Urban Fantasy Noir

by Bostick, B. A.

  The room door opened and shut. Then two sets of footsteps crossed the carpet. A hand grabbed his face by the chin and lifted up his head.

  Bishop blinked. His eyelids seemed to be working in slow motion, one of them not entirely cooperating with the other. That probably had to do with the last punch he’d taken.

  Lieutenant Martin turned Bishop’s face from side to side, examining its condition. He seemed pleased with Connie’s workmanship.

  Nicolai Tesslovich was standing a few steps away, probably to avoid getting blood on his suit. “Has he told you how to find the Raptor yet?”

  “He’s harder to convince than Connie thought,” the little man said.

  Bishop hated people who talked about themselves in the third person. Since he really, really hated Connie already, it wasn’t much of a stretch to add that little quirk to the shit list he was building against him. When he finally killed the little mutant he wouldn’t feel a shred of guilt. It would be a public service.

  “He’s bleeding on my rug. This carpet was six hundred dollars a yard.”

  “Is red,” Connie said. “Nobody notice.”

  Bishop heard a slap. “Okay, okay. Sorry. I put down newspaper before I start again.”

  “Plastic! Put down plastic you idiot, newspaper will just soak through. Why are you doing this in my office anyway?”

  “People everywhere,” Connie complained. “Come. Go. Get me this. Get me that. I am professional artiste, not servant. I need quiet place to do my work. This room soundproofed. Nobody bother me here.”

  “We need to get going, sir,” Lt. Martin said.

  Tesslovich sighed. “Unfortunately Connie, I need to take you away from your playmate for a few hours. I need you to do some errands for me before tomorrow. It’s going to be a big day and everything needs to go perfectly.” Tesslovich kicked Bishop in the ankle trying to see how far gone he was. “Are you almost finished with this?” he asked the little man.

  “No. No. No truth yet, only bad words and disrespect. More pain is needed. More pain is deserved by this one before he dies.”

  “Well,” Tesslovich said, “I imagine he’ll keep. Give him a shot before you go out. Wouldn’t want him getting ideas.”

  Connie gave a snort of laughter at the very idea that Bishop might get away from him. “Is good,” he said, “for this man to have plenty of time to think about what I do to him when I get back.”

  After Tesslovich left, Connie opened one of the wall panels behind the desk. The shelves were full of pill bottles, small vials of liquid medication, bandages, bright steel instruments and a few large jars of various body parts swimming in preservative.

  “Connie know you awake,” he said.

  Bishop watched through swollen eye lids while the little man filled a syringe from one of the small vials.

  With total disregard for technique, the little man stuck the needle into Bishop’s leg, right through his jeans, and emptied the contents. It hurt. A lot. But not as much as some other things Connie had done to him.

  “It must be nice,” Bishop mumbled, as he started to drift off into unconsciousness, “to have a job you really enjoy...”

  - 9 -

  Ariel held the phone in her hand all the way up the stairs to her apartment so she wouldn’t miss it if Bishop’s kidnapper called back. Tomas dumped the vests and the grenade launcher on the kitchen table, filled the kettle and put it on for tea.

  He poked around in the refrigerator and cupboards looking for food. “Looks like pasta with,” he looked closer at the jar he was holding. “--tequila garlic tomato sauce. Do you have any parmesan?”

  Ariel pointed to a cupboard.

  “Are you all right?”

  “No. I hate sitting around when demons are holding my friends captive. I know we can’t do anything until tomorrow or we might warn them we’re coming. But I feel like I should be doing something. I don’t even know if Mouser is still alive.”

  “Well, you know Bishop is alive because the guy who has him said he’d call you back and let you listen in.”

  Ariel dropped into a chair and set her cell phone on the table top where she could reach it.

  Tomas turned the gas on under a large pot of water, threw in a fist full of pasta and a dollop of olive oil. “You might as well eat something,” he said. “I had breakfast but I haven’t seen you take a bite all day. You don’t want to faint from hunger in the middle of slaying demons do you?”

  The kettle started to whistle. He snatched it off the burner before it hit that excruciating high note than only dogs and Raptors could hear.

  “Tea?”

  * * *

  Ariel picked at the plate of pasta. Tomas was a good cook. She remembered that from combat training, although he tended to err on the side of quantity because he was usually feeding a whole class.

  “So, how long have you known this Bishop?” Tomas asked.

  “Since the night I tried to kill Tesslovich. He was already there getting slapped around by his gypsy minion. In fact, it was the same guy who’s got him now. Cassius says he’s human but we’ve killed him twice and he just keeps coming back.”

  “Carries a grudge, huh?”

  “Bishop does tend to piss people off.”

  “No wonder you two get along so well.”

  Ariel laughed. “Is this jealousy?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Bishop told me about the missing kids. He pulled the whole thing together so it made sense. He bought Mouser espresso and pizza and listened to all his conspiracy theories. I owe him.”

  “They’re collateral damage, El. We have other priorities.”

  “Collateral damage? That’s shit, and you know it.”

  “Our responsibility is to stay on mission.”

  “I get that, but if we start writing humans off as collateral damage who are we protecting? Or has this always been a war between angels and demons with humanity just a bunch of cattle caught in the crossfire?”

  “That’s stupid.”

  “Really? Think about it for a minute. A demon is kidnapping homeless kids for medical experiments. The Guardian refuses to do anything about it. Yeah he put a hit out on Tesslovich but that could have been because he’d become so high profile The Guardian needed to make an example of him, let demon-kind know they were trying to climb farther up the ladder than they deserved to go. Then suddenly there’s a real threat: Booga, Booga! Super demons! Demons who could pose a real threat to the order of things. Now the guy upstairs is listening and he’s decide to throw a little cannon fodder at the problem, see what shakes loose before he gets involved.”

  “You’re saying we’re expendable.”

  “Dude!” Ariel channeled Mouser. “Haven’t you been paying attention? How long have Raptors been around?”

  Tomas shrugged.

  “Centuries? Millennia? Eons of uncounted time? How big are your combat classes?”

  “Eight or ten fledges every three to six months.”

  “And are you the only combat trainer?”

  “No.”

  “So why are so many newbies being trained all the time? There’s only one Raptor to a territory. It has to do with the balance, Tomas. The demons overstep, we retaliate. Sometimes they die, sometimes we do. Can’t you see Raptors are only a tool? Tools are expendable, one breaks you get another. For the Guardians it’s as simple as that.”

  “We’re not human, Ariel. We exist for only one purpose.”

  “We’re not human now, but what if we used to be?”

  Tomas got up and cleared the table, setting the dishes carefully in the sink. “It’s the dreams, right?” he said. “I told you before, you can’t believe dreams have anything to do with reality.”

  “Do you remember your childhood?”

  “We don’t have childhoods.”

  “Okay. Do you remember anything past four or five years ago?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I do. It’s the same memory, over and over again. There’s
a man, a woman and a child. I think the child is me, only much younger. I think. . . I think the woman is my mother. The man hits the woman, hard. Maybe even kills her . . . then he tries to hurt me. At the end of the dream I’m always running away. Running for my life.”

  Tomas frowned. “I never dream. I meditate. I teach. I kill demons. I sleep. I never dream.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  Tomas found a towel and dried his hands. “You still mad at me?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah you are. Not about our relationship, but because I wouldn’t listen to you when you came to me for help.”

  Ariel shrugged. “If you’re apologizing Tomas, I accept. But it’s not necessary. What we had was nice, but we both moved on. I’m not trying to bring that back. As far as help goes, you’re here now. That’s what counts.”

  Ariel looked at the cell phone. It just sat there on the table, pregnant with silence. “I guess we should get some sleep.”

  “The tub is a little short for me. If you have some extra blankets, I’ll sleep on one of the mats.”

  “Sleep in the bed,” Ariel said. “There’s plenty of room and your virtue is safe with me.”

  Tomas smiled. “Thanks, I could use a good night’s sleep.”

  “Me too.”

  “Really,” Tomas said, following Ariel into the bedroom. “I never dream.”

  * * *

  Ariel lay on her back staring at the ceiling. Tomas lay next to her, on his side, snoring gently. She envied him his serenity and the simplicity of his commitment to being a Raptor. He’d tried to teach her meditation as a way to calm her volatile nature, but Ariel cherished her anger like a small votive flame, fearing that if she let it burn out she would lose her purpose in the world.

  Tomas twitched in his sleep. No, it was more than a twitch.

  Ariel sat up, alarmed.

  Tomas trembled and thrashed at the covers, his face was covered in sweat.

  Ariel dodged an out-flung arm and put her hand on his shoulder, hoping the touch would settle him. The touch electrified Tomas. He flung himself to the side, falling out of the bed, scrabbling toward the wall, taking the covers and pillow with him like a shield.

  She lunged for the bedside lamp, knocking the cell phone to the floor in her haste.

  Tomas blinked owlishly against the light. His bare feet still pushed against the floor in an attempt to get further from the bed. He looked down at the blankets and pillow as if he didn’t know why he was holding them so tightly, then closed his eyes and let his arms drop. His head thunked back against the wall. He sat perfectly still until his breathing slowed to a normal rate.

  Ariel could almost see him mentally picking up the scattered pieces of himself and putting them back where they belonged.

  “What happened?” He asked at last.

  “You had a nightmare,” Ariel said.

  “No.”

  “Believe me, I know a nightmare when I see one. It’s something you have no control over. It just comes no matter what you try to do.”

  Tomas scrubbed at his face. “I can’t . . .”

  Ariel got up and came around the end of the bed. Gently she pried the covers away, threw the pillow back against the headboard. “Get back in bed,” she said. “It’s cold out here and you have all the blankets.”

  Tomas let her extricate him, getting to his knees to let her pull the sheet out from under him. “I don’t think I want to go back to sleep right now.”

  “Not a problem We can talk.”

  Ariel pushed the pillows up against the headboard and pulled the covers over both of them. Tomas sat against his pillow but she crossed her legs and sat facing him Indian fashion, curious and concerned.

  “What was it you saw?” She asked.

  “There was a crash and then a man.” Tomas shut his eyes, trying to hold the threads of the dream together long enough to remember them. “He was trying to tell me something, but there was no sound coming out of his mouth. He was holding a woman in his arms. She was covered in blood, not moving, but I couldn’t see her face. Then I was in an alley. Someone hit me, and kept on hitting me. I could hear yelling, then I couldn’t hear anything at all, just like I couldn’t hear what my dad was saying . . .”

  “Fuck,” Tomas’ fist thumped the mattress. “That couldn’t be right.” He was quiet a minute, thinking, letting the idea that he’d had a dream settle in. “Is this what it’s like for you?”

  “Pretty much, slightly different scenario. Something triggers it. My dreams started after I saw this guy backhand a woman on the street in front of a bar. I knocked him down but she wouldn’t leave him. Just kept screaming at me to go away.”

  “I don’t know what my dream means,” Tomas said, “but I don’t like it. The man and woman were black like me. Maybe that’s what you do in dreams, make people look more like yourself. I never saw the ones who were hitting me in the alley, although I felt like I’d really stirred up a nest of trouble and they were getting me back for it.”

  “You’ll probably be fine for the rest of the night,” Ariel told him.

  “I don’t know. If this keeps happening I may never want to sleep again.”

  Tomas stared straight ahead. He wasn’t looking at her, but she was looking at him, a line of concern between her eyes. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  It startled him but he turned his face toward her and she moved her mouth to his lips, probing gently at first, then as he responded, she urged her tongue deeper. She rose to her knees, straddled his legs, put her hands on his shoulders, trying gently to massage out the knots his nightmare had put into his muscles. He slid his hands under her t-shirt, moved them up the smooth skin of her back until he reached the faint scars that followed the inside curve of her shoulder blades. All Raptors knew this was the center of their power, the opening to their wings. The scars were exquisitely sensitive. Opening them triggered a burst of adrenalin that heightened their senses and doubled their strength.

  Ariel arched her back as Tomas touched her. Something between a growl and a moan rumbled softly in her throat. Tomas pulled the t-shirt off over her head and leaned forward to nip gently down the naked line of her throat to her shoulder. Her fingers dug into his biceps urging him on. In seconds they were tearing at each other clothing, working it off over arms, legs and heads while barely breaking contact. Tomas rolled Ariel onto her back. Their hands and mouths roamed each other’s body, touching, licking, biting all the sensitive places, old and familiar spots, but somehow new again. The bed covers slid unnoticed onto the floor.

  Tomas’ muscles were hard and defined, honed by years of martial arts. Ariel’s body was lean and taut from daily practice. Her long legs tangled with his, her small breasts filled his hands, their nipples erect. The taste of them was sweet on his tongue. Ariel touched Tomas in return. The skin on his sex was tight and silky under her fingers. His breath moaned against her mouth. He grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand away, not trusting himself to be able to wait.

  Tomas kneeled between her legs. His tongue trailed hot and wet down her body, searching gently for other places, other tastes. Ariel reached behind him, stroked his shoulder blades, ran her fingers back and forth along his scars. A cry burst from his lips as the scars parted. Wings unfurled from open flesh, feathers spread dark and wide over the two of them like an exotic tent of blue-black silk.

  “Now,” Ariel whispered.

  Tomas slid both hands under her thighs. He lifted her and watched their bodies join as he entered her. She was moist and hot and tight. Her legs circled Tomas, heels pressing insistently against the back of his thighs. She rose to meet him, pulling him deeper with each stroke until they were moving to a rhythm that became so exquisitely unbearable they had to let go.

  For a long moment there was no here or there, no time or space, no fear or regret, only blind sensation that made no judgment and asked for nothing in return. They collapsed into an exhausted tangle of limbs and wings. Each knew that what had j
ust happened hadn’t been for love or lust, but for comfort, for sensation without thought, for an exhausted mutual peace and a few hours of dreamless sleep.

  - 10 -

  “Bill?” The man who stood on the corner of Fourth and Lincoln was clean shaven, hair cut to a stubble and wearing a wrinkled but clean and patched set of fatigues.

  “Surprise, huh?” he said in a familiar voice. “Mr. Kale said I could get on the train as long as I was sober enough to hold a gun and know who to point it at.” He pulled a half pint of vodka out of his shirt pocket and took a small sip before putting it back. “That’s just to keep off the shakes and hallucinations. Don’t want to mistake a ‘goyle for one of my flying monkeys. I’ve kinda gotten used to the little buggers and I don’t want to shoot one by mistake.”

  Dingo flashed a good grief kind of look behind Bill’s back. “We need to get below,” he told Bill. “We got a tight schedule.”

  Bill gave the roof tops and doorways a good going over as he backed into the alley. Ariel and Dingo followed his lead. In a moment they were behind a dumpster and through a hole in the wall that Bill quickly closed up with a piece of plywood. After that it was just the usual confusing twists and turns, dark tunnels and ladders leading down, level after level.

  * * *

  “You think Bill is a good idea?” Ariel asked Cassius.

  “He really wants in on this. He’s an experienced combat vet and he’s been semi sober for three days now. He’s done his best to adjust his blood alcohol level from blotto to functional. Except for one bad bout with pink bats, he’s been doing fine.”

  “Monkeys,” Ariel said. “Pink monkeys.”

  “Whatever. Where’s your friend?”

  “Tomas? He’s with the Dogs. I’ll meet up with him after I get Bishop.”

  Cassius flipped on a wall mounted screen. “Zaki’s train is loading up now. There hasn’t been a new car entering the Hauptman garage or Tesslovich property for at least an hour. They’re picking up passengers from both platforms.” The screen split. “There’s Tesslovich playing All Aboard.”