Tick...
Are people inherently evil?
The thought drifted unbidden into Felicity Makeshift's mind as she crouched on the ledge, 15 storeys above the flaming bus she had crashed through the Hospital doors just half an hour earlier.
Can an evil man ever truly do good?
Tick...
And if a good man does evil, is he still good?
Springing upwards and out she hurled herself into the void, still pondering the unknowable matter of the soul.
Tick...
Are we just our deeds, or does intent still count?
Throwing out her arms, Fliss released the nano-filament webbing which stretched from her wrists to the waistband of her skintight black leather flight suit and braced herself for the impact.
BOOM!
The explosion took out the top three floors of the hospital, the shockwave billowing the flight membranes and throwing Fliss high above the skyline. She rode the thermal updraft and executed a graceful loop. At apogee she took a moment to admire the view, hanging in the air like a black-clad angel, looking out across the smoking ruins of Westminster and the burning thread of the Thames, well into its sixth year of perpetual flame. Then she dropped into a swooping, sweeping dive and landed on the roof of the British Museum, touching down on one exquisitely formed foot with all the effort of an 18th Century noblewoman alighting from a carriage at the Palace Ball.
"Bravo! Bellisima!"
Applauding softly, Stanford stepped from the shadows as Fliss tapped the palm control to retract the flight membranes and gave a curtsey.
"Why thank you kind sir. But what brings our favourite American to this Gods-forsaken hole?"
Stanford shrugged.
"The Dandelion Brigade got word of your action here and I thought I'd swing by and say hello."
Fliss smoothed a wrinkle from the sleeve of her catsuit, frowning.
"You came all this way just to see me?"
"I've gone much further than that in the past."
Looking thoughtful, Fliss unzipped her suit down to her ample cleavage, slipped one slender hand inside and withdrew a silver cigarette case. She lit up, then offered the case to Stanford. He shook his head, raising the twin M15 pistols he held as an explanation. Understanding, Fliss slipped the case away once more.
"Of course you have," she said, "but that was all such a long time ago. Before."
Stanford smiled sadly.
"Before. Is that how we're referring to it now? I guess it was quite a watershed moment. Everything divides quite nicely into before my two-timing lesbo bitch girlfriend shot me in the head, and after. It really rearranges things, you know?"
Felicity exhaled a smoky protective sigil and tapped out a complex rhythm with her left boot heel, sending an emergency evac request to Monk Blue's antique 1933 Mickey Mouse watch. Inserting the mechanism had involved ripping out the original clockwork innards, but as the watch was actually an early German fake, Monk hadn't worried too much about it. It no longer kept any sort of time, Mickey's hands forever frozen at 11:25 in a perfect Nazi salute, a coincidence not lost on Fliss, Monk, or the horologist who finally deciphered the coded inscription on the back of the case and identified it as the same Disney knock-off Hitler had worn when he gave the order to invade Poland. Now the priceless artifact had been disembowelled and rebuilt with the ability to rouse Monk from even the deepest narcotized slumbers.
As it sounded he raised his head from the sticky bar, wiped stale crisps from his face and took a look around to try and work out who was doing all the screaming. The pub was closed, the jukebox a smouldering wreck in the corner, the barman was still out cold under the pool table and he vaguely recalled releasing the landlord's parrot in the small hours of the morning in the woefully mistaken belief that he knew how to catch, kill, skin and eat it. He'd chased it into the gents, trying to entice it into a salad-filled pitta bread, but the wily beast had avoided becoming a kebab by trapping him in a cubicle and flying out of the window. So, not the parrot, not the barman, not an avant garde punk track, no other customers...
"Am I screaming?" he wondered aloud. "No; Speaking. Can't scream and speak at the same time. Or can I?"
He gripped the bar with both hands and gave it his best shot, screaming like a Francis Bacon Pope and offering himself a nice cup of tea at the same time. He strained his throat and bit his tongue, but it was a valiant effort all the same. He thought that with more practise, suitable lubrication for the vocal chords and a more vowel heavy sentence, he might just manage it.
"I'll pour myself a couple of pints," he decided, "then give it another go."
He pulled himself up onto the bar, rolled over and dropped onto his back on the other side. The carpet was sodden with flat beer, soapy dishwater and brawler's blood and studded with countless tiny shards of broken glass.
Screaming once more, Monk flailed around in surprise, lashing out wildly at the evil goblins who he knew had to be holding the dozens of tiny spears which were suddenly embedded in his back and buttocks. With one random kick he managed to bring the drip tray down upon his head and the sudden deluge finally brought him to his senses.
"The goblins can wait," he thought, scrambling to his feet but remaining crouched behind the bar. "Must find out who's screaming."
He listened, but it was hard to concentrate on the screams as the strap of his Nazi Mickey watch was causing a sharp pain in his wrist. At regular beats, a hot, stabbing sensation made the fingers of his left hand spasm and close. Annoyingly, the bursts of fiery pain and the brain-clenching howls had somehow synchronized, so that he couldn't focus on one without the other intruding. Still, at least he knew where the pain was coming from; Perhaps he could deal with that first. He peered intently at the watch, the rodent's red eyes blinking demonically in time with the rhythmic jolts. Activating a nanoscopic recording chip embedded in his left ear lobe, he began his investigation.
"Time is, ah, 11:25 precisely. Most likely AM. Location unknown. Room appears to consist of a single rectangular space three metres long by two deep by one metre high, populated by invisible goblins, number unknown. At the far end of the room is a large white metal bird cage, the bars bent outwards as though something much larger than the average parrot has climbed inside the cage and attempted to flap its wings; Possible goblin involvement here as well. Will investigate further once I solve the case at hand, to wit, why is my signal watch making all that noise? ...Oh..."
Reaching up with his thumb and forefinger, Monk silently squeezed his earlobe, purging the recorder. Better if no-one else heard that. Pulling himself upright, he reached out and slipped a pint glass under the vodka optic, made a mental note to come back and deal with the goblins at the earliest opportunity then knocked back half a pint of neat Russian breakfast. Then he sent a sub-lightspeed coded info-pellet to the central hub, asking for four point triangulation on Fliss and an immediate exfiltration. The request traversed the almost infinite distance between Monk and the hub in the mis-firing of an opiate damaged synapse, burrowing through successive layers of reality like a hungry tick in a fat dog's flesh.
Monk imagined the universe to resemble a jellyfish, with a thick, gelatinous core where most of the conscious thought occurred and hundreds of thousands of thick, ropy stinging tendrils hanging down from the outer edge. The multiverse was a stack of jellyfish as high as time and as wide as existence, the stingers overlapping and completely covering the softer flesh, so that the overall structure resembled an endless column of soft, luminous matter wrapped entirely in intertwining strands. This outer skin prevented anything from inside escaping - and vice versa - but it also allowed for restricted movement between universes. This transuniversal travel involved a searing pain of such intensity that only the astrally adept or terminally insane dared risk it, and it rarely worked with any degree of success. In fact, it was this bone-deep agony that inspired Monk's jellyverse, as it was akin to climbing up the stinger of a massive Portuguese Man O' War wearing only a pair of speedos. Of course, the Man O' War isn't really a jellyfish, any more than the multiverse is shaped like an infinite stack of invertebrates, and Monk knew it, but he never liked to let hard facts get in the way of his beliefs. He just gave silent thanks to the patron saint of wasted metaphysicists and sat back to wait for the good word to come down from the hub.
Existing in all universes simultaneously, in a different form in each one and accessible from just about any point in the space-time continuum, the hub was Monk's name for the base from which all of their operations were launched. As with the jellyverse, he had created his own explanation for the hub's existence, a deeply held personal belief that framed the hub as the central repository for all archetypal thought-forms, dreams and visions, with a slow puncture which allowed consciousness to leak out into the various universes like so much excess gas. And as with the jellyverse, Monk's interpretation was far from the truth, but there was no-one to tell him any different. The only details anyone could confirm for certain about it was that it was bigger on the outside than it was on the inside, by a factor somewhere close to infinity, it had a tendency to drift a little to the left when stationary, which made calculating re-entry a bitch, and the upper floor was currently on fire.
This was a relatively recent development. Inside the hub, the third floor had been aflame for less than ten minutes. Outside, the renaissance had ended just as the first sparks caught the curtains and Oppenheimer had stood in the Mojave desert and wept at around the same time Arihaily's Bowie posters had turned to ash.
Dragging her bed away from the wall, beating at the singed edges of her Strawberry Shortcake duvet cover, Ari tried to understand what was happening. Was it an attack? Was the world ending? Had she fallen asleep with a lit cigarette again? The answer came almost instantly as a small flaming orb screeched past her and out onto the landing. Running out after it, Ari leant over the railing at the top of the stairs to call for backup.
"Midge! MIDGE! It's back again!"
Doubling back on itself, the orb slipped back up the stairs, hidden by a thick cloud of black smoke. While Arihaily was busy raising the alarm, the orb set light to the balusters. With a sudden crack, the bannister gave way and Ari toppled forwards, landing head first on the smouldering stairs. Tumbling down to the next landing, she sat up and gripped her head with both hands until it stopped spinning. Her nose was bloodied and she had a nasty bump on her left temple, but apart from this she was remarkably healthy and ready to fight back. Looking up to locate her quarry, she was just in time to see the newel post crashing down upon her.
Recovery took a moment longer after this impact, during which time the orb set light to her shirt, then headed for the occupied areas of the floor. Tearing away the lit half of her shirt and slapping at her singed underthings, Ari took off after the orb, following the trail of flame and destruction towards the kitchen.
Like the malevolent spirit of a Chuck Jones cartoon given spherical chrome-plated form, the orb waited just inside for her, the tip of its flame licking gently at the multicoloured plastic ribbon curtain which hung in the doorway. As Ari moved to sweep the curtain aside, it went up in a flash, blackening her porcelain skin and singeing her eyebrows. Grinding her teeth and clenching her fists, she moved into the kitchen and began to run the water into the sink.
Behind her, the orb hovered just out of reach, as if watching her every move. As she filled the largest jug she could find, it drew back into the shadows, dimming its fires and sinking into the darkness. By the time she turned back it had disappeared altogether.
"Midge godsdammit! Where are you?"
Turning in a slow, wary circle, Ari called again for her missing comrade, looking at the same time for the fiery interloper. Seizing it's opportunity, the orb silently slipped out from its hiding place, rolled along the floor and drifted up until it hovered directly beneath the water-filled jug. A single flame appeared at its apex, surreptitiously melting through the base.
"MIDGE!"
At the moment when she screamed the loudest, the base of the jug gave way and a steady stream of icy water jetted out and soaked the crotch and legs of her jeans. With a faint popping, the orb relit and shot off towards the door.
Singed, smokey, half naked and soaked to the bone from the waist down, Ari screeched furiously and hurled herself after it once more. Losing her footing on the stairs she gave up on gravity altogether and soared aloft, racing the orb up and down the corridors and stairwells, rattling along the gleaming white expanse of Felicity's quarters and scattering the haphazard piles of comics littering Monk's rooms, exploding through the pressurised doors of the central chamber and warping fifty years of vinyl LPs along the way. Scooping up all available missiles as she passed by, Ari launched books, ashtrays, stuffed rabbits and hunting caps at the fleeing orb, fouling its trajectory and causing it to ricochet off walls and doorframes. The orb retaliated by increasing its core temperature to the point where every impact caused another fire to instantly erupt, so that Ari found herself flying through archways of flame, dodging blazing lampshades and skimming over scorched carpet and superheated laminate flooring that bubbled and burst, spattering her with molten plastic and splinters of fake wood.
Circling around the central chamber for what felt like the fiftieth time, with short circuits buzzing and fitzing around her head, lights flashing and sirens wailing, Ari finally understood how to deal with the orb. On her next swoop past, she stuck out an arm and slammed the door shut, jamming it into the frame so tightly that little less than a full frontal attack from outside would open it again. They were trapped in a closed loop now, going ever faster but getting nowhere. The orb was leaving a trail of flames in the air as it whizzed around the chamber, a glowing circle of heat. As the speed increased, it began to run over the end of its own trail, setting fire to the flames it had left behind it. Screaming with the effort, Ari struggled to keep up, reaching out to try and grasp the orb, her fingertips brushing the molten chrome surface, her fingernails blackening and crackling, curling up in the intense heat. The orb knew how close she was and put on a final burst of speed, zooming along in its mad flight like an insane miniature comet trying to devour its own tail.
Panting heavily, Ari came to a dead stop, watching for a moment as the orb whipped past her face a dozen times. Fixated on it's forward motion, the orb failed to register that it was no longer being pursued. Trapped in the cycle, it whipped round the room in a steady, predictable flightpath.
Working rapidly, Arihaily crouched at the base of a monitoring station and used her bare fingers to unscrew an inspection plate. Half a metre square, the solid steel panel was designed to withstand all manner of missile attacks, protecting the delicate circuitry within the monitor. Gripping it tightly at the top and bottom, Ari held it parallel with the flaming trail, waited for the orb to whip past, then held it out across the return path.
Unable to steer itself out of the way, the orb collided with the panel at something approaching the speed of sound. The panel shattered, the shards melting into globs of blazing ore even as they flew through the air, splattering the walls, floor and ceiling with smoky silver dots. Ari's arms snapped to one side, yanking her from her feet and sending her spinning into the monitor, smashing the screens and dials into a flurry of twinkling glass snowflakes. The noise of the collision blew out her eardrums and left her unable to hear anything but her own hysterical giggling.
At the last instant, seeing the imminent impact, the orb had tried to stop in mid-flight, but momentum had overtaken it, bending and warping it over and onward, so that for a final, fleeting instant it appeared to hang motionless in the air, watching the panel rush towards it. In that moment, the orb surrendered to the inevitability of destruction and dimmed its flames, marshaling its energy reserves for one last mighty burst. Hitting the panel dispersed those reserves in an apocalyptically explosive manner. The flame disc erupted outwards at a perfect horizontal, cutting a black band into the walls, bursting all of the monitor screens and blowing the door back out, sending it hurtling down the corridor. Flying like a silver surfboard down the short distance between the central chamber and the restroom, it sailed through the bathroom door with sledgehammer force, slamming into the wall to hang suspended above the toilet where Midge sat. Clutching her book so tightly that it split down the spine into two separate pieces, looking up at the door, she tried to make some sort of witty comment but no words would appear. Instead she let rip with the kind of fart which can only be produced when a nice, relaxed bowel movement is interrupted by an unexpected near death experience. Still deafened by the blast, Ari couldn't hear the parp, but there was little doubt what had happened when the methane hit the flickering flames of the chamber door and a burning nimbus haloed out around her colleague's head. Laughing wildly, she pulled herself upright, leaving several tufts of smouldering hair caught on the wrecked monitor. Patting the flames out, she brushed aside a lump of charred circuitboard and spotted the blinking red light of an emergency beacon.
"Oh shit..."
Pounding at the half-dead monitoring station, she managed to patch the signal through to her wrist receiver. Flipping back the cover, she projected the incoming message onto the smoky air, fearing the worst. Still pulling her trousers up, Midge stepped up beside her, reading the request.
"There's no way we can get a whereabouts report with the hub so fucked up," she said calmly. "There's only one way we can help now."
"What?"
"There's no way... Oh forget it. Here, do like me."
Placing her hands on the deafened Arihaily's shoulders, Midge pushed her down to her knees amidst the burning wreckage, then joined her, holding her hands up with the palms exposed. Understanding, Ari pressed her own palms against her friend's, feeling the cool skin against her own hot flesh. As Midge began to chant, the coolness seemed to spread up her arms and shoulders and across her chest. Her breath came in short, hitching gasps as the air froze in her lungs. Before her, Midge's words appeared in the air between them as her exhalations turned to mist. The flames surrounding them died away as the temperature continued to drop. The lights dimmed, the walls receded as the space between universes trickled in to fill the void they had created. This was as close as they had ever dared go before, far closer than they ever chose to go voluntarily. If there hadn't been agents in immediate danger they would never have attempted it. As the room descended into total darkness and the simple movement of blood through icily constricted cells began to cause unimaginable pain, as they wavered on the edge of hypothermic death in the limitless wastes of non-space, they saw their goal.
Hanging between them like an unspoken secret was a silver sliver of potential, the barest glimpse of the underpinnings of creation. It was the heart of it all and no more than a single facet of the endless majesty. It was Heaven and Hell, the beginning and the end and the birth and the death of all things. It was the appearance in that time and place of the petrified star, and the people who lived there were doing the twist.
Deep in the frigid heart of the silver star, the burning figures were dancing. It made them happy to dance, and they chose their music on a whim, a stately waltz one moment, a pogoing punk howl the next. But they never missed a call. Unlike Monk, who heard but didn't understand, or Ari, who didn't hear at all, the charred souls recognized each signal for what it was. They saw the reasons behind and beyond its intrusion into their sanctum sanctorum and they saw also the chain of potential futures trailing out ahead of them, an endlessly bifurcating stream of yes/no equations. Of course, that meant that they already knew when the next call would come through, but they still liked to pretend that they didn't know which way they would go in any situation. As Chubby Checker came to a close, the two youngest beings entwined their hands and sang together in a croaking, lilting melody, dancing in a merry, skipping circle as they went.
"Do we answer?"
"Yes or no?"
"Not to answer?"
"Yes or no?"
"Wants an answer?"
"Yes or no?
"Gets an answer?"
"Yes or no?"
The elder essence of the beloved took a step away from the spinning figures and used a charcoal finger to trace the line of flames from the hospital roof, through the smouldering jukebox, on to the damaged hub and finally to their own realm of frozen fire. Seeing the hidden patterns swirling in the ashes, the elder smiled, releasing a wisp of merry smoke. It was good. Reaching out with one scorched hand, the essence selected a single 45 from the stack beneath the flaming bed and lowered it reverently onto the spindle of the little record player, lovingly caressing its red leatherette case. At the first crackle, the first faint hiss of the stylus in the groove, the spinning children disentangled themselves; They had an answer.
As the song throbs into life, as the guitars drive out a rhythm as primal as the tide and as deep as the moon, they dance again, all three aspects of the essence, the whole family unit of flame in their home in the heart of the stillborn sun.
And Norman Greenbaum Sings...
Drifting back into consciousness, shivering against the cold which had crept into their bones, Ari and Midge helped each other to stand, huddled together for warmth. Caressing her comrade's bare shoulders, Midge felt an overwhelming urge to weep, and she saw it reflected in Ari's eyes in the instant before they kissed. The essence of the beloved touched their world and drew them together in a joyful expression of unity and love, and they expressed it as a physical equation, you plus me equals us. Deeply, passionately, they kissed and caressed and held each other tightly, their wandering hands entwining and trailing across unknown landscapes of soft yielding flesh. Catching her fingers on the strap of Ari's wrist receiver, Midge absently keyed in the co-ordinates for Felicity's safe retrieval, then loosened the strap and tossed it aside as her other hand worked on the infinitely more interesting catch on Ari's bra.
Working on his second pint, Monk also felt the movement of a warm breeze through the branches of his mind. He understood what had happened before the signal came through, and he gave silent thanks to the beloved for their intercession on his behalf. Monk was not just a name, and in his core he knew that he belonged to them, had failed them, but still they came to his aid. Forever and ever amen.
"Amen," he belched, then drew out a simple 5D map in spilled beer on the bar. Longitude, latitude, height in relation to sea level. X Y and Z. Drawing the line out and away from the bar, he factored in the U axis, the precise point within the multitude of stacked universes where Felicity had once, was now or would eventually be standing. The fifth axis he drew into the bar, tracking back to it's inception as a small green shoot in the rich loamy soil and forward to its end when the bar, the pub and the whole city would be engulfed in the ever rising waters and the slow process of rot and decay would strip it down to its component atoms. This was the T axis, time. Now he knew where, when and in which universe Fliss was about to die, getting there was the easy part. Drawing up the loose edges of reality, he shook it like a quilt and propelled himself onwards and upwards, moving through the jellyverse like a sentient pineapple chunk.
"... before my two-timing lesbo bitch girlfriend shot me in the head, and after. It really rearranges things, you know?"
"I'm sure it does," Fliss said calmly, "but you have to accept that it wasn't exactly an unprovoked attack. Remember?"
Stanford shook his head violently.
"Don't even try to say that I asked for it. You slept with her in our bed, and when I tried to talk to you about it, you shot me in the head."
Reaching up, he tore off his toupee and revealed the mottled, artificial skin which covered the unpleasant concavity in his skull.
"In the head Fliss! I need that for thinking and shit!"
"You're a soldier. You get told when to shit."
Raising his guns, Stanford marched towards her, his eyes blazing. The veins at his temples were throbbing rapidly, and the dented, hairless area above them seemed to raise and fall slightly as they did. He was one good shout away from an embolism, but Fliss couldn't take the chance that he would pop off before he did something nasty to her.
"So now you want to get your own back and shoot me in the head? Darling, think about it - That wouldn't achieve anything. One bang and it's all over, like our wedding night. Wouldn't you much rather use me as some sort of depraved sex slave for a while? You can mistreat me all you want then, for as long as you like."
Stanford looked uncertain, his guns drooping to his sides.
"Come on Sergeant, think about it. You could make me beg. You could humiliate me."
She took a last drag of her cigarette, then held the glowing butt out to him, at the same time unzipping her catsuit to expose her soft white skin.
"Please don't hurt me," she whimpered, ducking her head to avoid his eyes. "Don't make me cry again."
Dropping one of his guns, Stanford took the cigarette and examined it, waiting for his damaged brain to make the connection. To speed things along, Fliss stepped closer, into the crook of his shoulder, so that he looked down and saw both the burning ember and her exposed cleavage at once. Reaching up she gripped his wrist tightly and tried to hold the cigarette away from her skin but also twisting the lit end towards herself, planting ideas and playing the unwilling victim at the same time. Her leather-clad leg rubbed almost accidentally against his, and she was gratified to notice that even if his brains were slow, the rest of him was responding according to plan. Keeping her head down, she forced out the weakest, most pitiful voice she could muster.
"Please Sergeant..."
That did it. Desparate to see the pain on her face as he burnt her, Stanford dropped the other gun and grabbed her ponytail, yanking her head back. As he saw the look of triumph in her eyes he staggered backwards a halfstep, but it was too late. She turned his hand back at the wrist so that the smouldering cigarette found its way to his own flesh, then pushed him one step further to the side. As he howled with pain. Monk's bullet tore through the back of his head, shattering his poorly repaired skull and spraying the remains of his brains all over Makeshift's face and shoulders. As he fell to his knees and crumpled to the ground between them, Monk stepped forwards and pulled Fliss into his arms. Kissing her gore-streaked face, he smiled broadly, amazed as ever that she would allow him to do this. Letting his eyes wander down to her unzipped suit he picked a tooth with a trailing lump of gristle from her cleavage and flicked it off the rooftop.
"Damn, you're hot."
"I've got bits of my ex all over me."
Monk shrugged.
"I don't care. I don't even know what I've got all over me."
Fliss smiled, then moved slightly to stand beside him, looking out over the city. In the distance there was a flash of light and the sound of tearing metal as the sagging supports on the London Eye finally gave way and tipped the wheel down onto the cardboard city at its base. Closer to them, the blaze in the hospital had spread to the lower floors and a couple of neighbouring buildings had also caught fire.
"Monk, do you ever wonder why we do what we do? Is it right or wrong, good or evil, all that nonsense?"
"You mean, am I a bad person for saving your life - Again - and killing the psychopathic sex monster? What's to wonder about?"
"Point taken. Just promise me you'll keep doing it."
"Just call me and I'll be here, okay? Whenever you need me. I mean, what could go wrong?"
Showing posts with label Felicity Makeshift. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Felicity Makeshift. Show all posts
Saturday, 2 January 2010
Sunday, 30 August 2009
Absolute Beginners Part 3 : Let's Go!
Blue lit a smoke, looked at the monster standing between him and his friends and sighed.
"Bad dreams in the desert, coyote man."
Cody looked back at him, leering, his neck twisting round to an obscene degree. Blue heard the cracking of many small bones and winced; There was no coming back from that, but the boy-thing still stood there, grinning.
"You want some more, worm?"
The Nagual made a simple movement with his free hand and Blue fell to his knees, his heart pounding, sweat pouring from him. He felt as if he was burning up, every part of him ablaze, but he knew it was an illusion. He narrowed his eyes, focussed on the glowing ember at the tip of his cigarette and forced himself upright, smiling as he re-lit his cigarette.
"Come on then old man. Let's have it."
A way down the road, behind the shapeshifter, Felicity shook her head in dismay. He was a nice kid; A shame he had to go and get himself killed by acting like a dumb action hero. Cody threw back his head and howled.
Negative desert. Black sand, white sky, blood the colour of diamonds, cold green flames licking at his heels. Blue stands. Blue falls. Blue stood. Blue fell. The moon so low, like a dimple in the atmosphere, curving in to kiss the Earth. Smoke rising from footprints. Eyes as dead as John Wayne's. Cowboys and Indians and the cowgirl in the sand.
Cody growls the name of the place, "Zzyzx," and the desert explodes.
Makeshift closes her eyes, drops the name of her favourite deity and spreads her mind across the dawn, fighting the wolfman to bring in the light. With nothing else to go on, she reaches out to her friends with her thoughts.
Ari is limp and lifeless, caught in the strong grip of a walking corpse. Cody is long gone, his mind torn loose like wet tissue, wadded and tossed out of the taxi halfway between there and here. Blue is on his knees again, coughing up blood that makes him gag and retch, something ancient and wet sliding up his throat to be born in the dead sands. She flexes her thoughts, winds it back and over, and Blue is standing, smiling, lighting a smoke.
Hold for a heartbeat.
Hold for another.
Hold until your breath is gone and your lungs are about to burst. Let it go and Blue is falling.
"I will not let you fall." she promises, but the A-bomb winds of the nightmare desert tear her words from her blistered lips and shred them on the distant fallout shelter walls.
The time is now. The time is 1945. The times they are a-changin'. Speeding up, the mushroom cloud a spiralling whirlpool of oblivion which draws in everything in its wake, spinning them ever faster like an out of control fairground ride, the waltzers of doom. Scream if you want to go faster.
Cody steps forward, dragging Ari's heels through the dirt. He's barely human now, his hair a shaggy mane, his legs bent in all the wrong places. Smoke rises from his footprints, cold green flames licking at his heels. He laughs, low and guttural, a snarl of triumph.
Fliss holds her breath, holds everything together, then opens her eyes and smiles sadly at Blue, standing proud and strong at the end of the road. She can hold it no longer. The maelstrom bursts through, she loses her grip, and Blue is falling.
Blue falls. On his hands and knees, gagging and retching, trying not to look at the clumps of cancerous flesh which are staining the black Earth before him, he still can't help but wonder where the tumors are going as they drag themselves away into the darkness to start their own mutated reservation in the dry lake bed.
"Zzyzx!" Cody Wolfman calls the name again, howling gibberish to the fractured sky. The moon is so low, he reaches up one twisted paw and grazes the surface, obliterating historic bootprints. Dust drifts gently down upon his head, tickles his snout, and he sneezes.
In that instant, Fliss is at his throat. He walks like a man, she fights like a beast, expensive, exquisite orthodonture tearing through the rough pelt, hot blood splashing her porcelain cheeks. The Nagual lets out a howl of protest and knocks her away with his free hand. As she tumbles over, rolling backwards across the molten tarmac, the shapeshifter shifts his grip on Ari, then hurls her after her friend. The girls crash together and fall silent, and old Matus smiles his wolfish smile and wonders which of the little cihuapillis should get it first. He's always liked the look of Felicity, but the dark haired girl always seemed too stuck up for his liking, so maybe he should fuck her first, bring her down a notch or two? He's got plenty of time for both. He shuffles over to the girls, grabs a fistfull of Ari's hair in one hand, Fliss's ankle in the other and tenses, ready to spring up to the moon.
"If he moves, kill him."
Cody looks back at where Blue should be lying in a spreading pool of his own blood and filth and instead finds the boy standing. Smiling. Liting a smoke. At his side stands another, a man formed of diseased waste and dead flesh, twin guns in his hands, both cocked and trained on the wolfman. Blue nods at the stranger, then gives Cody a wolfish grin of his own.
"Coyote spirit, you up for a game of cowboys and Indians?"
The stranger steps forward, guns raised, and Matus drops the girls.
"Bishop..."
Pike smiled.
"Hokahe, Coyote."
A frozen instant, the dry hiss of a rattlesnake, then two cancerous slugs, fibrous and black, erupt from Pike's guns and slam into the wolfman's shoulders. He staggers, launches himself with a howl of fury and pain, lands with his jaws on the dead cowboy's throat. Only then does he realise that he's been played. Pike and his bunch are long gone, and they won't come back in any way but an ill advised remake. The thing beneath him isn't Pike Bishop, or even William Holden. It's Blue's reanimated tumour flesh, and it's still hungry. Surging up across the coyote's muzzle, the rapidly metastasizing cancer swarms across his face, blinding and suffocating him. It pours down his throat like a milkshake two months out of date, searing his stomach and spreading through his lungs untill they teem with malignant growths, swelling and rupturing and birthing successive generations of cancer. The black mass eats him from within and without, and the moon world withdraws from him forever.
Blue smoked, and smiled and stood. He blew a smoke ring which circled the slowly departing moon, then disappeared as the first rays of the rising sun burned scorched across the desert, eight hours late but never more welcome.
Fliss groaned, pulled herself upright, then rolled Ari to the recovery position.
"What happened?"
Blue shrugged.
"I'll tell you sometime. Is that a friend of yours?"
He nodded in the direction of a dust trail heading towards them at some speed, coming from the direction of the camp. Felicity cast her mind out and sighed.
"It's Midge. Late as usual."
"At least it saves us walking back - The taxi's well fucked."
He lit a fresh smoke, then held the pack out to Fliss. She took one, lit it and took a long pull, then blew out a cloud of smoke that obscured them from Midge, Ari and the eyes of all creation. Wasting no time, she wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him in close for a long, soft kiss. The pressure of her fingers on his skin was soothing and cool, the antithesis of the fevered battle, while the feeling of her tongue in his mouth was all he ever hoped and more besides. He knew in that instant that if anyone could ever save the world, it was her, and he would be with her every step of the way.
Stepping back, still stroking his neck, she smiled, placed the smoke between her moist lips and winked at him. Blue tried to match her cool, collected manner, but he had to fight his beaming grin back every step of the way.
"I thought you were too good for me?" he asked.
"Oh don't worry, I still am."
She watched the horizon, deep in thought, looking at something only she could see.
"You'll do for now though, and one day you'll leave us all behind."
He began to protest, but then the smoke cleared, the jeep pulled up alongside them and Ari was sitting up and moaning.
"Is anyone going to tell me what happened?"
Fliss and Blue looked at each other and burst out laughing. In the jeep, Midge looked at the trio, their battered, bloody faces, their tattered clothes and the smoking ruin of the taxi and sighed.
"Why do I never get asked on these nights out?"
Notes
"Bad dreams in the desert, coyote man."
Cody looked back at him, leering, his neck twisting round to an obscene degree. Blue heard the cracking of many small bones and winced; There was no coming back from that, but the boy-thing still stood there, grinning.
"You want some more, worm?"
The Nagual made a simple movement with his free hand and Blue fell to his knees, his heart pounding, sweat pouring from him. He felt as if he was burning up, every part of him ablaze, but he knew it was an illusion. He narrowed his eyes, focussed on the glowing ember at the tip of his cigarette and forced himself upright, smiling as he re-lit his cigarette.
"Come on then old man. Let's have it."
A way down the road, behind the shapeshifter, Felicity shook her head in dismay. He was a nice kid; A shame he had to go and get himself killed by acting like a dumb action hero. Cody threw back his head and howled.
Negative desert. Black sand, white sky, blood the colour of diamonds, cold green flames licking at his heels. Blue stands. Blue falls. Blue stood. Blue fell. The moon so low, like a dimple in the atmosphere, curving in to kiss the Earth. Smoke rising from footprints. Eyes as dead as John Wayne's. Cowboys and Indians and the cowgirl in the sand.
Cody growls the name of the place, "Zzyzx," and the desert explodes.
Makeshift closes her eyes, drops the name of her favourite deity and spreads her mind across the dawn, fighting the wolfman to bring in the light. With nothing else to go on, she reaches out to her friends with her thoughts.
Ari is limp and lifeless, caught in the strong grip of a walking corpse. Cody is long gone, his mind torn loose like wet tissue, wadded and tossed out of the taxi halfway between there and here. Blue is on his knees again, coughing up blood that makes him gag and retch, something ancient and wet sliding up his throat to be born in the dead sands. She flexes her thoughts, winds it back and over, and Blue is standing, smiling, lighting a smoke.
Hold for a heartbeat.
Hold for another.
Hold until your breath is gone and your lungs are about to burst. Let it go and Blue is falling.
"I will not let you fall." she promises, but the A-bomb winds of the nightmare desert tear her words from her blistered lips and shred them on the distant fallout shelter walls.
The time is now. The time is 1945. The times they are a-changin'. Speeding up, the mushroom cloud a spiralling whirlpool of oblivion which draws in everything in its wake, spinning them ever faster like an out of control fairground ride, the waltzers of doom. Scream if you want to go faster.
Cody steps forward, dragging Ari's heels through the dirt. He's barely human now, his hair a shaggy mane, his legs bent in all the wrong places. Smoke rises from his footprints, cold green flames licking at his heels. He laughs, low and guttural, a snarl of triumph.
Fliss holds her breath, holds everything together, then opens her eyes and smiles sadly at Blue, standing proud and strong at the end of the road. She can hold it no longer. The maelstrom bursts through, she loses her grip, and Blue is falling.
Blue falls. On his hands and knees, gagging and retching, trying not to look at the clumps of cancerous flesh which are staining the black Earth before him, he still can't help but wonder where the tumors are going as they drag themselves away into the darkness to start their own mutated reservation in the dry lake bed.
"Zzyzx!" Cody Wolfman calls the name again, howling gibberish to the fractured sky. The moon is so low, he reaches up one twisted paw and grazes the surface, obliterating historic bootprints. Dust drifts gently down upon his head, tickles his snout, and he sneezes.
In that instant, Fliss is at his throat. He walks like a man, she fights like a beast, expensive, exquisite orthodonture tearing through the rough pelt, hot blood splashing her porcelain cheeks. The Nagual lets out a howl of protest and knocks her away with his free hand. As she tumbles over, rolling backwards across the molten tarmac, the shapeshifter shifts his grip on Ari, then hurls her after her friend. The girls crash together and fall silent, and old Matus smiles his wolfish smile and wonders which of the little cihuapillis should get it first. He's always liked the look of Felicity, but the dark haired girl always seemed too stuck up for his liking, so maybe he should fuck her first, bring her down a notch or two? He's got plenty of time for both. He shuffles over to the girls, grabs a fistfull of Ari's hair in one hand, Fliss's ankle in the other and tenses, ready to spring up to the moon.
"If he moves, kill him."
Cody looks back at where Blue should be lying in a spreading pool of his own blood and filth and instead finds the boy standing. Smiling. Liting a smoke. At his side stands another, a man formed of diseased waste and dead flesh, twin guns in his hands, both cocked and trained on the wolfman. Blue nods at the stranger, then gives Cody a wolfish grin of his own.
"Coyote spirit, you up for a game of cowboys and Indians?"
The stranger steps forward, guns raised, and Matus drops the girls.
"Bishop..."
Pike smiled.
"Hokahe, Coyote."
A frozen instant, the dry hiss of a rattlesnake, then two cancerous slugs, fibrous and black, erupt from Pike's guns and slam into the wolfman's shoulders. He staggers, launches himself with a howl of fury and pain, lands with his jaws on the dead cowboy's throat. Only then does he realise that he's been played. Pike and his bunch are long gone, and they won't come back in any way but an ill advised remake. The thing beneath him isn't Pike Bishop, or even William Holden. It's Blue's reanimated tumour flesh, and it's still hungry. Surging up across the coyote's muzzle, the rapidly metastasizing cancer swarms across his face, blinding and suffocating him. It pours down his throat like a milkshake two months out of date, searing his stomach and spreading through his lungs untill they teem with malignant growths, swelling and rupturing and birthing successive generations of cancer. The black mass eats him from within and without, and the moon world withdraws from him forever.
Blue smoked, and smiled and stood. He blew a smoke ring which circled the slowly departing moon, then disappeared as the first rays of the rising sun burned scorched across the desert, eight hours late but never more welcome.
Fliss groaned, pulled herself upright, then rolled Ari to the recovery position.
"What happened?"
Blue shrugged.
"I'll tell you sometime. Is that a friend of yours?"
He nodded in the direction of a dust trail heading towards them at some speed, coming from the direction of the camp. Felicity cast her mind out and sighed.
"It's Midge. Late as usual."
"At least it saves us walking back - The taxi's well fucked."
He lit a fresh smoke, then held the pack out to Fliss. She took one, lit it and took a long pull, then blew out a cloud of smoke that obscured them from Midge, Ari and the eyes of all creation. Wasting no time, she wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him in close for a long, soft kiss. The pressure of her fingers on his skin was soothing and cool, the antithesis of the fevered battle, while the feeling of her tongue in his mouth was all he ever hoped and more besides. He knew in that instant that if anyone could ever save the world, it was her, and he would be with her every step of the way.
Stepping back, still stroking his neck, she smiled, placed the smoke between her moist lips and winked at him. Blue tried to match her cool, collected manner, but he had to fight his beaming grin back every step of the way.
"I thought you were too good for me?" he asked.
"Oh don't worry, I still am."
She watched the horizon, deep in thought, looking at something only she could see.
"You'll do for now though, and one day you'll leave us all behind."
He began to protest, but then the smoke cleared, the jeep pulled up alongside them and Ari was sitting up and moaning.
"Is anyone going to tell me what happened?"
Fliss and Blue looked at each other and burst out laughing. In the jeep, Midge looked at the trio, their battered, bloody faces, their tattered clothes and the smoking ruin of the taxi and sighed.
"Why do I never get asked on these nights out?"
Notes
Saturday, 15 August 2009
Absolute Beginners Part 2 : A Night On The Town
"The dinosaurs are dead, fuckers! We're the kings of the Earth and your momma's a wallet!"
Felicity gazed through the shattered windscreen, watched the moon edging towards the horizon and thought about how it had all gone so horribly wrong. At ten o'clock, they had all been about ready to go back to the camp; They still had their jeep, most of their money and Cody was still behaving like a rational human being. Six hours later and they were racing across the desert in a stolen taxi, penniless and wretchedly hungover, with Blue at the wheel, while Cody hung out of the back window screaming abuse at the lizards and jackrabbits which watched their passing with disinterested eyes.
"Could you maybe let us out now?" asked Arihaily. "We'd be fine walking from here, honestly."
Blue turned to look at her in the back seat, leaving Felicity to reach across, grab the wheel and steer them between a huge cactus on one side and a deep gully on the other.
"Are you crazy?" he demanded. "This same lonely desert was the last known hiding place of the Brady Bunch! You wouldn't last five minutes before little Cindy was cracking your skull like a pinata and scarfing your sweet brains down like Satan's own eggnog!"
He turned back in his seat, took the wheel once more, then smiled dreamily at Felicity.
"You have such lovely brains..."
"Just drive, moron."
In the back seat, Ari clung tightly to Cody's legs in the hope of keeping at least half of him inside the car. With every bump they hit, he jerked further out, and she seemed to be the only one worrying about it.
"Fliss? Want to give me a hand here?"
Felicity reached between the seats, prised off one of Cody's shoes and twisted his little toe until it popped. Cody screamed into the pre-dawn skies, then promptly passed out.
"That should hold him for a few minutes. When he comes round, tell him to sit still and shut up or I go through the rest, one at a time."
Ari nodded dumbly, then hauled the unconscious boy back into the taxi. Fliss turned back to Blue.
"So how well do you know the other moron?"
Blue shook his head, causing the car to swerve wildly.
"Never spoken to him in my life before today. He just seemed a bit down after the old bastard borrowed his body, thought we could cheer him up."
"Right. And the acid?"
"Share and share alike. Want some?"
"Drive."
The car crossed through bands of faint light and utter darkness, the shadows of ancient geological formations which dotted the mesa. It was strangely soothing, hypnotic, and they all grew quiet. After a while, Blue glanced at Felicity and smiled.
"You should get some rest. You look done in."
Fliss yawned.
"I'm okay. So long as I can get a couple of hours before I'm on duty again, I'll be fine."
"What are you on tomorrow?"
She frowned.
"Bodyguard detail I think. Is that right Ari?"
There was no response so she swivelled in her chair to look at her friend, then smiled and nudged Blue's shoulder. He looked in the rear view mirror and saw Ari and Cody curled up asleep in each other's arms.
"Aww, I knew they'd hit it off."
Fliss yawned again, brought her legs up onto the seat and curled up like a cat.
"How much further is it?"
Blue shrugged.
"A while yet. Go on, I'll be fine. I'll wake you when we get there."
Felicity smiled at him, touched his arm.
"You know, you're actually not that bad."
"I have my moments."
They drove on, and after a few minutes, when he heard her soft snores, Blue reached out and snapped the radio on. The dial was shattered and the light blinked on and off continuously, but somehow it worked. He twisted the tuner, cycled through half a dozen fire and brimstone all night preachers, then smiled when he came across Freebird.
"Skynyrd... Nice."
He settled back in his chair, one hand on the wheel, the other resting lightly on Felicity's shoulder, driving on into the dawn. The music swam through his mind, and the strobing shadows soothed him until he found himself yawning and blinking. His legs began to feel heavy, as if there were lead weights tied to his feet. His hands too, then his arms. He felt the car accelerate as his dead weight pressed down on the pedal, and he realised with mild surprise that he could barely even lift his arm to steer. The car was driving itself, heading at full speed into the desert, the squealing tyres still audible above the endless guitar solo. Through heavy eyes, he looked at the clock on the dashboard and wasn't all that shocked to discover that the song had been playing for a little over an hour now, and still showed no signs of ending.
With a massive effort, he managed to flex his fingers, digging them into Felicity's shoulder. He squeezed harder and harder, until he felt the bones grating together and she sat up with a yelp of pain. The spell was broken and he had control of himself once more, just in time to swing the wheel before they hit the tower of rock looming directly before them, throwing the car off the road and into a ditch. There was a stomach churning drop as the ground disappeared beneath them, and they almost rolled over entirely, then crashed back onto their wheels once more, resting against the earthen wall of the ditch, one working headlight pointing up into the sky like a searchlight. The engine died, but the radio grew louder and more distorted, the music wailing and screeching as the end of the world prophets faded back in, their voices overlapping and merging, like an argument in a madhouse.
Felicity scrambled out first, then wrenched open the back door to help Ari and Cody out on to the road. Blue dragged himself up across the passenger seat and began looking around for shelter.
"Are you crazy?" Fliss demanded. "You damn near killed us. And you almost broke my shoulder! What the hell was that about?"
He ignored her, wandering along the road, patting at his pockets for cigarettes, lighter and anything else that he could use in the imminent attack. Ari felt it next, the thickening of the air, the sensation of a great hand, pushing her to the ground. She willed herself to remain upright and began to follow Blue, pulling the still-groggy Cody along beside her.
"Fliss, we've got to go. Now!"
Felicity jumped, began following her friends along the dusty road, heading towards the dawn.
"What is it? Who's after us?"
Ari stopped, turned slightly as if to speak, then froze and choked on her words. She slumped forwards, until it was Cody supporting her, holding her in the crook of his arm as he straightened up and grinned wolfishly at Felicity.
"Hello little cihuapilli. Have you come to play as well?"
Felicity staggered back as the words hit her like a fist.
"Matus? Oh shit..."
Notes
Felicity gazed through the shattered windscreen, watched the moon edging towards the horizon and thought about how it had all gone so horribly wrong. At ten o'clock, they had all been about ready to go back to the camp; They still had their jeep, most of their money and Cody was still behaving like a rational human being. Six hours later and they were racing across the desert in a stolen taxi, penniless and wretchedly hungover, with Blue at the wheel, while Cody hung out of the back window screaming abuse at the lizards and jackrabbits which watched their passing with disinterested eyes.
"Could you maybe let us out now?" asked Arihaily. "We'd be fine walking from here, honestly."
Blue turned to look at her in the back seat, leaving Felicity to reach across, grab the wheel and steer them between a huge cactus on one side and a deep gully on the other.
"Are you crazy?" he demanded. "This same lonely desert was the last known hiding place of the Brady Bunch! You wouldn't last five minutes before little Cindy was cracking your skull like a pinata and scarfing your sweet brains down like Satan's own eggnog!"
He turned back in his seat, took the wheel once more, then smiled dreamily at Felicity.
"You have such lovely brains..."
"Just drive, moron."
In the back seat, Ari clung tightly to Cody's legs in the hope of keeping at least half of him inside the car. With every bump they hit, he jerked further out, and she seemed to be the only one worrying about it.
"Fliss? Want to give me a hand here?"
Felicity reached between the seats, prised off one of Cody's shoes and twisted his little toe until it popped. Cody screamed into the pre-dawn skies, then promptly passed out.
"That should hold him for a few minutes. When he comes round, tell him to sit still and shut up or I go through the rest, one at a time."
Ari nodded dumbly, then hauled the unconscious boy back into the taxi. Fliss turned back to Blue.
"So how well do you know the other moron?"
Blue shook his head, causing the car to swerve wildly.
"Never spoken to him in my life before today. He just seemed a bit down after the old bastard borrowed his body, thought we could cheer him up."
"Right. And the acid?"
"Share and share alike. Want some?"
"Drive."
The car crossed through bands of faint light and utter darkness, the shadows of ancient geological formations which dotted the mesa. It was strangely soothing, hypnotic, and they all grew quiet. After a while, Blue glanced at Felicity and smiled.
"You should get some rest. You look done in."
Fliss yawned.
"I'm okay. So long as I can get a couple of hours before I'm on duty again, I'll be fine."
"What are you on tomorrow?"
She frowned.
"Bodyguard detail I think. Is that right Ari?"
There was no response so she swivelled in her chair to look at her friend, then smiled and nudged Blue's shoulder. He looked in the rear view mirror and saw Ari and Cody curled up asleep in each other's arms.
"Aww, I knew they'd hit it off."
Fliss yawned again, brought her legs up onto the seat and curled up like a cat.
"How much further is it?"
Blue shrugged.
"A while yet. Go on, I'll be fine. I'll wake you when we get there."
Felicity smiled at him, touched his arm.
"You know, you're actually not that bad."
"I have my moments."
They drove on, and after a few minutes, when he heard her soft snores, Blue reached out and snapped the radio on. The dial was shattered and the light blinked on and off continuously, but somehow it worked. He twisted the tuner, cycled through half a dozen fire and brimstone all night preachers, then smiled when he came across Freebird.
"Skynyrd... Nice."
He settled back in his chair, one hand on the wheel, the other resting lightly on Felicity's shoulder, driving on into the dawn. The music swam through his mind, and the strobing shadows soothed him until he found himself yawning and blinking. His legs began to feel heavy, as if there were lead weights tied to his feet. His hands too, then his arms. He felt the car accelerate as his dead weight pressed down on the pedal, and he realised with mild surprise that he could barely even lift his arm to steer. The car was driving itself, heading at full speed into the desert, the squealing tyres still audible above the endless guitar solo. Through heavy eyes, he looked at the clock on the dashboard and wasn't all that shocked to discover that the song had been playing for a little over an hour now, and still showed no signs of ending.
With a massive effort, he managed to flex his fingers, digging them into Felicity's shoulder. He squeezed harder and harder, until he felt the bones grating together and she sat up with a yelp of pain. The spell was broken and he had control of himself once more, just in time to swing the wheel before they hit the tower of rock looming directly before them, throwing the car off the road and into a ditch. There was a stomach churning drop as the ground disappeared beneath them, and they almost rolled over entirely, then crashed back onto their wheels once more, resting against the earthen wall of the ditch, one working headlight pointing up into the sky like a searchlight. The engine died, but the radio grew louder and more distorted, the music wailing and screeching as the end of the world prophets faded back in, their voices overlapping and merging, like an argument in a madhouse.
Felicity scrambled out first, then wrenched open the back door to help Ari and Cody out on to the road. Blue dragged himself up across the passenger seat and began looking around for shelter.
"Are you crazy?" Fliss demanded. "You damn near killed us. And you almost broke my shoulder! What the hell was that about?"
He ignored her, wandering along the road, patting at his pockets for cigarettes, lighter and anything else that he could use in the imminent attack. Ari felt it next, the thickening of the air, the sensation of a great hand, pushing her to the ground. She willed herself to remain upright and began to follow Blue, pulling the still-groggy Cody along beside her.
"Fliss, we've got to go. Now!"
Felicity jumped, began following her friends along the dusty road, heading towards the dawn.
"What is it? Who's after us?"
Ari stopped, turned slightly as if to speak, then froze and choked on her words. She slumped forwards, until it was Cody supporting her, holding her in the crook of his arm as he straightened up and grinned wolfishly at Felicity.
"Hello little cihuapilli. Have you come to play as well?"
Felicity staggered back as the words hit her like a fist.
"Matus? Oh shit..."
Notes
Saturday, 1 August 2009
Absolute Beginners Part 1 - Soldier Girl
"We can soar like eagles or scamper like rabbits," said Matus. "We can swim like the dolphins, be kings and queens, or even be ourselves, for eternity."
The old Nagual nodded his head slowly, his milky blue eyes half closed, as if lost in deep thought. After a moment or two, the boys sitting cross-legged before him on the dry sand began to wonder if he was meditating or merely sleeping, and whether there was really any difference between the two once you reached the great age Matus claimed to be. The midday sun was warm without being unpleasant though, and the breeze rolling in from the desert kept the air in motion, so most of the students waited silently, attentively, for the lesson to continue. Seeing his chance, Blue risked a quick glance around at his fellow novices, then slipped a chocolate bar from his shirt pocket and took a large bite. He ducked his head again and munched contentedly, until the boy sitting beside him reached over and slapped him harshly between the shoulder blades. Blue sprawled forwards, his legs twitching like a dreaming dog, a thick drool of melted chocolate bubbling from his lips. The other students scattered in surprise, scrambling around and away to watch this strange turn of events from a safer distance.
A pair of guards, teenage girls in drab olive fatigues, came running over from their post outside the camp administration building, raising their rifles and shouting warnings at Blue's attacker. The boy merely turned and smiled at them, and they faltered and lowered their weapons.
"And we must beware at all times," said the boy, his voice that of the ancient Indian, his milky eyes twinkling with mischief, "for there are many dark actors playing games here. We must never let our guard down, no matter what the temptation."
He reached down and took the half-eaten chocolate bar from Blue's pocket and broke it into three pieces, offering two to the guards and popping the third into his own mouth. The dark haired girl smiled and accepted her piece meekly, while her fairer companion pointed at the still-convulsing Blue.
"Where is he Master Matus?"
The boy grinned, looking around at his stunned, curious students.
"Our sweet-toothed Tonal is wriggling down in the dirt, churning through the soil, blind and deaf, barely more than an eating, shitting machine. You see, we can be anything we wish to be, even a humble earthworm."
The bell by the mess hall door rang suddenly, and the Nagual returned to his own body, climbed stiffly to his feet and wiped the sand from his ass. The boy he had possessed blinked uncertainly at the armed girls before him, then frowned, spat out a lump of melted chocolate and peered at it in confusion. The other students laughed and chattered amongst themselves as they rose and made their way towards the mess hall, leaving the guards, the old teacher and the dazed student standing over the prone Blue. Matus shook his head sadly.
"Five more minutes and he would have been eating lunch. This one will always have trouble with his appetite, cihuapilli."
He looked over at the fair haired soldier girl and grinned.
"You will have to watch that, I think."
Before she could object, the old Indian had turned away to see to his other student, who was beginning to piece together the last few minutes. He looked up at his teacher, frowning.
"What just happened? Was someone else in my head?"
Matus smiled and placed his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Help me to the canteen and I'll explain everything."
They slowly shuffled away, the student supporting his master as he learned what had just transpired.
Finally, just the guards remained. Sighing, the dark haired girl grabbed Blue's shoulder and rolled him roughly onto his back.
"Why does he always leave us to clean up after him?"
Her colleague shrugged.
"He probably thinks we're learning something from it all."
She squatted beside Blue's empty husk and gripped his head firmly in both hands, her thumbs at his temples.
"Wax on, wax off and all that shit."
Blue's eyes fluttered open, and for a moment they were a dirty off-white, like the flesh of a creature which spends it's entire life far removed from the sun. Then they rolled wildly as the irises gradually reappeared, before finally settling on the girl leaning over him. Looking up at her, with the desert sun shining through her short, boyish hair like a golden halo, he felt an uncontrollable urge to smile.
"You're lovely," he said thickly, pushing up onto his elbows. "Are you an angel?"
The girl stepped away, shaking her head.
"Not another one..."
The dark haired girl laughed.
"You love it when this happens. You play on it. You'll have him trotting after you for a week at least, until you get bored with it."
The blonde girl pulled a pack of cigarettes from her shirt pocket, lit one and tossed the pack down to Blue.
"Okay, here's the deal," she announced, blowing a sigil-cloud of smoke to imbue her words with power over him. "I will allow you and one of your friends to take me and my friend here out on the town this evening. There will be no physical contact unless I initiate it, which is so unlikely that you might as well forget about it now. You will pay for everything, which will include at least a meal, three drinks and a movie. At the end of the evening, you will bring us back here to the camp and say goodnight like gentlemen. The only thing you will take away with you is that fag packet, which you will treasure as a souvenir of our time together. You will often wonder what might have been, especially when I begin my meteoric rise to stardom, but you will always know that I was too good for you and you will be eternally grateful for the brief hours you spent in my company. Understood?"
"Fair enough. So what's your name then?"
"She's Christa Paffgen," said the dark haired girl, "and I'm Fata Morgana, although you couldn't care less about me."
Blue lay back on the warm Earth and blew a wreath of smoke around his head.
"Christa... That's nice."
The girls exchanged smiles and shouldered their rifles, ready to move on and leave him with the lie.
"Course, if you don't mind, I'll just call you Felicity."
He sat up again and grinned at their stunned expressions.
"Is that alright with you Ari?"
Felicity looked down at Blue, lost for words, then turned to Arihaily.
"I don't think we'll be getting rid of this one that easily."
Notes
The old Nagual nodded his head slowly, his milky blue eyes half closed, as if lost in deep thought. After a moment or two, the boys sitting cross-legged before him on the dry sand began to wonder if he was meditating or merely sleeping, and whether there was really any difference between the two once you reached the great age Matus claimed to be. The midday sun was warm without being unpleasant though, and the breeze rolling in from the desert kept the air in motion, so most of the students waited silently, attentively, for the lesson to continue. Seeing his chance, Blue risked a quick glance around at his fellow novices, then slipped a chocolate bar from his shirt pocket and took a large bite. He ducked his head again and munched contentedly, until the boy sitting beside him reached over and slapped him harshly between the shoulder blades. Blue sprawled forwards, his legs twitching like a dreaming dog, a thick drool of melted chocolate bubbling from his lips. The other students scattered in surprise, scrambling around and away to watch this strange turn of events from a safer distance.
A pair of guards, teenage girls in drab olive fatigues, came running over from their post outside the camp administration building, raising their rifles and shouting warnings at Blue's attacker. The boy merely turned and smiled at them, and they faltered and lowered their weapons.
"And we must beware at all times," said the boy, his voice that of the ancient Indian, his milky eyes twinkling with mischief, "for there are many dark actors playing games here. We must never let our guard down, no matter what the temptation."
He reached down and took the half-eaten chocolate bar from Blue's pocket and broke it into three pieces, offering two to the guards and popping the third into his own mouth. The dark haired girl smiled and accepted her piece meekly, while her fairer companion pointed at the still-convulsing Blue.
"Where is he Master Matus?"
The boy grinned, looking around at his stunned, curious students.
"Our sweet-toothed Tonal is wriggling down in the dirt, churning through the soil, blind and deaf, barely more than an eating, shitting machine. You see, we can be anything we wish to be, even a humble earthworm."
The bell by the mess hall door rang suddenly, and the Nagual returned to his own body, climbed stiffly to his feet and wiped the sand from his ass. The boy he had possessed blinked uncertainly at the armed girls before him, then frowned, spat out a lump of melted chocolate and peered at it in confusion. The other students laughed and chattered amongst themselves as they rose and made their way towards the mess hall, leaving the guards, the old teacher and the dazed student standing over the prone Blue. Matus shook his head sadly.
"Five more minutes and he would have been eating lunch. This one will always have trouble with his appetite, cihuapilli."
He looked over at the fair haired soldier girl and grinned.
"You will have to watch that, I think."
Before she could object, the old Indian had turned away to see to his other student, who was beginning to piece together the last few minutes. He looked up at his teacher, frowning.
"What just happened? Was someone else in my head?"
Matus smiled and placed his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Help me to the canteen and I'll explain everything."
They slowly shuffled away, the student supporting his master as he learned what had just transpired.
Finally, just the guards remained. Sighing, the dark haired girl grabbed Blue's shoulder and rolled him roughly onto his back.
"Why does he always leave us to clean up after him?"
Her colleague shrugged.
"He probably thinks we're learning something from it all."
She squatted beside Blue's empty husk and gripped his head firmly in both hands, her thumbs at his temples.
"Wax on, wax off and all that shit."
Blue's eyes fluttered open, and for a moment they were a dirty off-white, like the flesh of a creature which spends it's entire life far removed from the sun. Then they rolled wildly as the irises gradually reappeared, before finally settling on the girl leaning over him. Looking up at her, with the desert sun shining through her short, boyish hair like a golden halo, he felt an uncontrollable urge to smile.
"You're lovely," he said thickly, pushing up onto his elbows. "Are you an angel?"
The girl stepped away, shaking her head.
"Not another one..."
The dark haired girl laughed.
"You love it when this happens. You play on it. You'll have him trotting after you for a week at least, until you get bored with it."
The blonde girl pulled a pack of cigarettes from her shirt pocket, lit one and tossed the pack down to Blue.
"Okay, here's the deal," she announced, blowing a sigil-cloud of smoke to imbue her words with power over him. "I will allow you and one of your friends to take me and my friend here out on the town this evening. There will be no physical contact unless I initiate it, which is so unlikely that you might as well forget about it now. You will pay for everything, which will include at least a meal, three drinks and a movie. At the end of the evening, you will bring us back here to the camp and say goodnight like gentlemen. The only thing you will take away with you is that fag packet, which you will treasure as a souvenir of our time together. You will often wonder what might have been, especially when I begin my meteoric rise to stardom, but you will always know that I was too good for you and you will be eternally grateful for the brief hours you spent in my company. Understood?"
"Fair enough. So what's your name then?"
"She's Christa Paffgen," said the dark haired girl, "and I'm Fata Morgana, although you couldn't care less about me."
Blue lay back on the warm Earth and blew a wreath of smoke around his head.
"Christa... That's nice."
The girls exchanged smiles and shouldered their rifles, ready to move on and leave him with the lie.
"Course, if you don't mind, I'll just call you Felicity."
He sat up again and grinned at their stunned expressions.
"Is that alright with you Ari?"
Felicity looked down at Blue, lost for words, then turned to Arihaily.
"I don't think we'll be getting rid of this one that easily."
Notes
Monday, 13 April 2009
String Theory and the Immaculate Conception of Imogen Dangerfield
01:21:33 AM, Manchester-Liverpool Branch Line, Monday 12.04.09
Imogen Dangerfield wept salty tears on the edge of the chemical soaked embankment as the train hit the receiver switch. The shock wave from the explosion hit her in the chest and knocked her into the undergrowth. The damp earth swallowed her up and spat her back out onto cold steel.
12:00:01 PM, Thollon-le Baines, French Alps, Wednesday 12.04.03
Imogen’s warm blood collected in a pool on the metal walkway. A large framed man, dressed in green fatigues, lifted her limp body onto his shoulders and gestured to a CCTV camera positioned in the corner of the room. He looked into the convex lens and started to speak “We got her back Swedish. Send a message to Colonel Blue. The war has begun.”
14:02:30 PM, Class 4B, Parkfield High School, Liverpool, Friday 12.04.94
Monk Blue gave Felicity a wink as he leaned across the row of desks and placed his tattered maths book on her desk. He pointed at the back cover, where he had written a message in black biro. She read the message and passed the book back. “Dangerfield did it then. Do you fancy another adventure?” she asked Monk. “Why, where are we going?” he replied.
“How does 'The Red City' sound?” a grin developed on her face.
“It sounds wonderful darling” he responded. “Do we get the chance to kill the bastard this time?”
“Of course we do Monkey. Do me a favour and alert the Dandelion Brigade.” She continued with her algebraic equation.
“Right O, Mam.” He gave her a mock salute. Felicity responded by sticking her tongue out and flagrantly displaying her middle finger.
Notes
Imogen Dangerfield wept salty tears on the edge of the chemical soaked embankment as the train hit the receiver switch. The shock wave from the explosion hit her in the chest and knocked her into the undergrowth. The damp earth swallowed her up and spat her back out onto cold steel.
12:00:01 PM, Thollon-le Baines, French Alps, Wednesday 12.04.03
Imogen’s warm blood collected in a pool on the metal walkway. A large framed man, dressed in green fatigues, lifted her limp body onto his shoulders and gestured to a CCTV camera positioned in the corner of the room. He looked into the convex lens and started to speak “We got her back Swedish. Send a message to Colonel Blue. The war has begun.”
14:02:30 PM, Class 4B, Parkfield High School, Liverpool, Friday 12.04.94
Monk Blue gave Felicity a wink as he leaned across the row of desks and placed his tattered maths book on her desk. He pointed at the back cover, where he had written a message in black biro. She read the message and passed the book back. “Dangerfield did it then. Do you fancy another adventure?” she asked Monk. “Why, where are we going?” he replied.
“How does 'The Red City' sound?” a grin developed on her face.
“It sounds wonderful darling” he responded. “Do we get the chance to kill the bastard this time?”
“Of course we do Monkey. Do me a favour and alert the Dandelion Brigade.” She continued with her algebraic equation.
“Right O, Mam.” He gave her a mock salute. Felicity responded by sticking her tongue out and flagrantly displaying her middle finger.
Notes
Saturday, 11 April 2009
Woman Of Mass Destruction
"My eyes are full of Kirby - crackle! I'm the eater of worlds! Devourer of suns!"
Monk Blue sat bolt upright, straining at his skin, attempting to get out in every direction at once. He clawed at the tattered curtains and pulled himself to his feet, hanging onto the luggage rack to remain upright as the train rattled across another roller coaster mountain bridge.
"Herald! Herald!"
The other passengers in the cramped carriage looked out at the vertiginous views or down at their sandals, feigned sleep or rigor mortis to avoid the madman's eyes as he staggered out of the car and into the corridor, overturning a basket of chickens as he went. He stumbled in the maelstrom of terrified clucking and dusty feathers, then fell into the arms of a six foot two vision of perfection in full burqa and jilbab.
"Aha! The power cosmic is upon us! From this height, they look like chickens!"
Felicity Makeshift shook her head sadly and maneuvered Monk back to his seat.
"What was it this time?" she asked. "The qat?"
Blue grinned like an evil pixie caught in the act of replacing a sleeping child with an ice carving.
"Allah be merciful. How much did you take?"
But as abruptly as he had risen from his slumbers, Blue had returned to the arms of Morpheus, leaving Felicity to make his apologies and talk his fellow travellers out of hurling the demon out of the window before he had chance to grind them all to paste. A handfull of spare change, a glimpse of the katana at her waist and the promise of three incarnations of unremitting pain were enough to buy their forbearance until the train arrived at the station.
An hour later, stepping down onto the bare sand platform, Monk was in a more relaxed state of mind. Felicity had traded a bundle of US currency for a half-hit of Ketamine from a deserting battlefield medic, and Monk had spent most of his comedown slurring the lyrics to Pictures of Lilly and quietly giggling to himself. Now he was alive, awake and ready to go... Somewhere. He looked around at the ruined buildings and deserted streets. No-one else had left the train here, and he could easily see why.
"Why are we here again?"
"I'm trading you in for a poppy field."
Felicity made for the station, the largest building still standing, barely pausing as she was hit by an almost solid wall of heat, noise and stench at the door. Monk followed less decisively and staggered back out into the sun, doing all he could to hold his heaving stomach contents on the inside. Breathing deeply, bent double, he waited until the worst had subsided, then straightened up and tried once more.
The station's single room was low, long and dark, packed with animals, people and things which could pass for either. The bleating of goats and the crying of children mingled with the low, desolate wail of a dotar and the high counterpoint of the wind as it whistled through the shell-torn ceiling. Standing in a shaft of sunlight, Felicity bowed her head and called out in Dari,
"I am travel weary, and fain would sleep. But, how shall I in all this hubbub know myself again on waking?"
From somewhere deep in the heaving mass of bodies came a mocking laugh, and a response in English.
"You could tie a pumpkin to your ankle, but you've got to watch these thieving bastards - It might not be there when you wake up, and then where would you be?"
Felicity smiled, looked into the shadows and drew aside her burqa to reveal the katana which hung like an unspoken threat at her waist.
"I thought the question was who?"
There was more movement in the darkness, and then a figure stepped forwards, out into another ragged patch of light. At his post by the door, Monk drew a sharp breath as he realised why they were there.
"You know the answer to that one Fliss..."
Reaching out, the man caressed Felicity's cheek through the rough woven jilbab, then tore away the veil to reveal the ugly web of scars which split her face like a shattered plate.
"Or have you forgotten me so soon?"
Again he laughed, but Felicity was unperturbed. Drawing her sword, she struck the man down with a single blow, then cleaned the blade on the hem of her robe as she waited for him to rise again. Sure enough, after a moment or two, the man clambered stiffly to his feet. In the dust-flecked shards of sunlight, she could just make out the thick, oily tendril connecting him to the rest of the hive.
"That wasn't very nice, love," he said thickly.
"The Beloved is all that lives," she replied, "The lover a dead thing."
The man cocked his head to one side, examining her closely.
"More poetry? You intend to kill us with words?"
Felicity brought the sword down once again, cleaving deeply into his shoulder, forcing the man to his knees. The steel ground against bone, and she had to put her heel against his chest to pull it free. The man sprawled back across the rubble and struggled to right himself with his one good arm. Felicity reached down and helped him up.
"Thank -"
This blow took the arm off altogether, and brought a moan of dismay from the great fleshy beast in the shadows. Something gave and the reek intensified as the animated corpse lost its innards in a thick flood. Monk turned away, fell back out into the desert sunlight and threw up. Felicity simply took a step back to avoid soiling her boots.
"The next train doesn't pass through till an hour after dark," she told the weeping creature. "What else have you got?"
A small child stepped out of the shadows, a little girl who grew more and more like Felicity as she drew closer.
"Mommy?"
Felicity laughed, a short, cold sound, then sliced the appendage in two, right between the pigtails. The beast recoiled, quivering in pain and fear, the mewling animal noises and the garbled voices running into each other as fresh mouths opened in dead flesh. A shapeless mass of tissue flew towards her, a cannonball which may once have been a head, streaming greasy strands of mucus behind it as it hurtled across the room. Felicity took a fighting stance and parried it easily.
"Better. What next?"
Out in the empty street, Monk sat down with his back to the wall, trying not to hear the slaughter in the room behind him. He tried humming, meditating and running his favourite sex fantasies, but the sound of raw steel on diseased meat was too loud, the smell too rancid, and in the end, all he could do was drop the tab he'd been trying to save for the trip back down the mountain. It came on sharp and clear, with a coppery taste on his tongue and a pleasant drifting sensation. He picked up a stick and began to write in the sand, one word over and over, her true name. But every time he tried, the desert wind roared in like a sword, carving it away, wiping it from the face of the Earth.
By nightfall, the only sound from the station was the repetitive thunk of a dulled blade chopping ever finer slivers of meat. Monk watched in vague disinterest as a one-eyed dragon crawled down from it's mountain lair and began to snake towards them, then recognized it as the returning train.
"All aboard for the Marrakesh Express!" he called.
There was a moment's silence, then a renewed vigour to the chopping sounds. Finally, after another five minutes, Felicity stepped out into the moonlight. She was caked in blood and grue up to the shins, but from there on up, she was as spotlessly gorgeous as a London model in Arab chic. Monk drifted back to his fantasies for a moment, then remembered that she had just been wading through the remains of her last boyfriend and thought better of it.
"Feel better now?" he asked.
Felicity nodded. "It's important to get a sense of closure."
She reached up and peeled the lattice of fake scar tissue from her face, leaving her porcelain features clear and without fault. Without a backward glance, she tossed the latex web through the station door and walked down to the edge of the rails to wait for the train.
Notes
Monk Blue sat bolt upright, straining at his skin, attempting to get out in every direction at once. He clawed at the tattered curtains and pulled himself to his feet, hanging onto the luggage rack to remain upright as the train rattled across another roller coaster mountain bridge.
"Herald! Herald!"
The other passengers in the cramped carriage looked out at the vertiginous views or down at their sandals, feigned sleep or rigor mortis to avoid the madman's eyes as he staggered out of the car and into the corridor, overturning a basket of chickens as he went. He stumbled in the maelstrom of terrified clucking and dusty feathers, then fell into the arms of a six foot two vision of perfection in full burqa and jilbab.
"Aha! The power cosmic is upon us! From this height, they look like chickens!"
Felicity Makeshift shook her head sadly and maneuvered Monk back to his seat.
"What was it this time?" she asked. "The qat?"
Blue grinned like an evil pixie caught in the act of replacing a sleeping child with an ice carving.
"Allah be merciful. How much did you take?"
But as abruptly as he had risen from his slumbers, Blue had returned to the arms of Morpheus, leaving Felicity to make his apologies and talk his fellow travellers out of hurling the demon out of the window before he had chance to grind them all to paste. A handfull of spare change, a glimpse of the katana at her waist and the promise of three incarnations of unremitting pain were enough to buy their forbearance until the train arrived at the station.
An hour later, stepping down onto the bare sand platform, Monk was in a more relaxed state of mind. Felicity had traded a bundle of US currency for a half-hit of Ketamine from a deserting battlefield medic, and Monk had spent most of his comedown slurring the lyrics to Pictures of Lilly and quietly giggling to himself. Now he was alive, awake and ready to go... Somewhere. He looked around at the ruined buildings and deserted streets. No-one else had left the train here, and he could easily see why.
"Why are we here again?"
"I'm trading you in for a poppy field."
Felicity made for the station, the largest building still standing, barely pausing as she was hit by an almost solid wall of heat, noise and stench at the door. Monk followed less decisively and staggered back out into the sun, doing all he could to hold his heaving stomach contents on the inside. Breathing deeply, bent double, he waited until the worst had subsided, then straightened up and tried once more.
The station's single room was low, long and dark, packed with animals, people and things which could pass for either. The bleating of goats and the crying of children mingled with the low, desolate wail of a dotar and the high counterpoint of the wind as it whistled through the shell-torn ceiling. Standing in a shaft of sunlight, Felicity bowed her head and called out in Dari,
"I am travel weary, and fain would sleep. But, how shall I in all this hubbub know myself again on waking?"
From somewhere deep in the heaving mass of bodies came a mocking laugh, and a response in English.
"You could tie a pumpkin to your ankle, but you've got to watch these thieving bastards - It might not be there when you wake up, and then where would you be?"
Felicity smiled, looked into the shadows and drew aside her burqa to reveal the katana which hung like an unspoken threat at her waist.
"I thought the question was who?"
There was more movement in the darkness, and then a figure stepped forwards, out into another ragged patch of light. At his post by the door, Monk drew a sharp breath as he realised why they were there.
"You know the answer to that one Fliss..."
Reaching out, the man caressed Felicity's cheek through the rough woven jilbab, then tore away the veil to reveal the ugly web of scars which split her face like a shattered plate.
"Or have you forgotten me so soon?"
Again he laughed, but Felicity was unperturbed. Drawing her sword, she struck the man down with a single blow, then cleaned the blade on the hem of her robe as she waited for him to rise again. Sure enough, after a moment or two, the man clambered stiffly to his feet. In the dust-flecked shards of sunlight, she could just make out the thick, oily tendril connecting him to the rest of the hive.
"That wasn't very nice, love," he said thickly.
"The Beloved is all that lives," she replied, "The lover a dead thing."
The man cocked his head to one side, examining her closely.
"More poetry? You intend to kill us with words?"
Felicity brought the sword down once again, cleaving deeply into his shoulder, forcing the man to his knees. The steel ground against bone, and she had to put her heel against his chest to pull it free. The man sprawled back across the rubble and struggled to right himself with his one good arm. Felicity reached down and helped him up.
"Thank -"
This blow took the arm off altogether, and brought a moan of dismay from the great fleshy beast in the shadows. Something gave and the reek intensified as the animated corpse lost its innards in a thick flood. Monk turned away, fell back out into the desert sunlight and threw up. Felicity simply took a step back to avoid soiling her boots.
"The next train doesn't pass through till an hour after dark," she told the weeping creature. "What else have you got?"
A small child stepped out of the shadows, a little girl who grew more and more like Felicity as she drew closer.
"Mommy?"
Felicity laughed, a short, cold sound, then sliced the appendage in two, right between the pigtails. The beast recoiled, quivering in pain and fear, the mewling animal noises and the garbled voices running into each other as fresh mouths opened in dead flesh. A shapeless mass of tissue flew towards her, a cannonball which may once have been a head, streaming greasy strands of mucus behind it as it hurtled across the room. Felicity took a fighting stance and parried it easily.
"Better. What next?"
Out in the empty street, Monk sat down with his back to the wall, trying not to hear the slaughter in the room behind him. He tried humming, meditating and running his favourite sex fantasies, but the sound of raw steel on diseased meat was too loud, the smell too rancid, and in the end, all he could do was drop the tab he'd been trying to save for the trip back down the mountain. It came on sharp and clear, with a coppery taste on his tongue and a pleasant drifting sensation. He picked up a stick and began to write in the sand, one word over and over, her true name. But every time he tried, the desert wind roared in like a sword, carving it away, wiping it from the face of the Earth.
By nightfall, the only sound from the station was the repetitive thunk of a dulled blade chopping ever finer slivers of meat. Monk watched in vague disinterest as a one-eyed dragon crawled down from it's mountain lair and began to snake towards them, then recognized it as the returning train.
"All aboard for the Marrakesh Express!" he called.
There was a moment's silence, then a renewed vigour to the chopping sounds. Finally, after another five minutes, Felicity stepped out into the moonlight. She was caked in blood and grue up to the shins, but from there on up, she was as spotlessly gorgeous as a London model in Arab chic. Monk drifted back to his fantasies for a moment, then remembered that she had just been wading through the remains of her last boyfriend and thought better of it.
"Feel better now?" he asked.
Felicity nodded. "It's important to get a sense of closure."
She reached up and peeled the lattice of fake scar tissue from her face, leaving her porcelain features clear and without fault. Without a backward glance, she tossed the latex web through the station door and walked down to the edge of the rails to wait for the train.
Notes
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