Blood On Borrowed Wings: A Dark Fantasy Thriller Read Online Free
Author: Darren Stapleton
audience. I would be alongside them before they got to her.
As I nonchalantly chewed my stolen snack I let my knife slide from its sheath in to my open palm and patted the thin wooden club at my belt with my other hand.
I was ready.
They were entirely focused on her.
The man nearest to her took something small from his pocket. The second man rubbed his bottom lip with the back of his hand whilst unhooking a thick wooden club from his belt. His knuckles were white as he gripped it. I noticed the first man had a syringe. I glanced at the two ringside and one was staring directly at me; mouth agape, he was shouting something that was inaudible above the crowd tumult. I relished my observational awareness, my senses were heightened, taut, like a fine glass wire ready to pick up any vibration or change in the air. My Vanguard Slayer training kicked in and I embraced the adrenalin and aggression, the building force behind my physical inertia and my stillness of purpose and mind. It did not matter how out of practice I was; how long it had been since I had left. The reason why was also inconsequential, all that mattered was this second, this inevitability, this fight.
I existed entirely in the moment, became the moment, the action and the consequence, the cause and effect.
I tapped the shoulder of the hyena nearest to me and he turned into the handle of my club as I brought it crashing in to his bulbous, pock filled nose; a pestle into its rotten mortar. He fell backwards like a sack of sticks, already unconscious and sprawled across the popcorn filled laps of two bemused audience members who were surprised, as if wondering how the mesh of the ring had not contained the fight. The first man spun as I quickly flipped the club in the air, caught it handle first and brought the heavy end down into his solar plexus. A massive gush of foul smelling air belched out across his uneven, jagged teeth, and he doubled over. I felt a sharp stinging sensation in my thigh as he fell. Sickly warmth radiated from my thick muscle. I looked down to see the empty syringe hanging from my leg like a mosquito that had died in the act of injecting anticoagulant. Revolted, I rammed the club back down and it settled with a hard wet smack into the back of his skull. It was an instinctual action borne out of the disgust for the possible concoction of barbiturates and diseases that could now be coursing through my system. It was more dumb Mudhead Police than Slayer though, and Sergeant Bleecker would not have approved of my reaction or the fact that I had been stuck in the first place.
The club stayed where I had left it.
People near me were screaming but it sounded like their voices were being filtered through thick layers of muslin into a duller, more distant tone; like the whole world was having a party next door. I blinked to try and clear my vision and turned to ringside again. I had lost sight of the spotter but could see the heavier one of the observers stepping on the same toes I had stepped on moments ago, storming down row K. People fleeing into the aisles were impeding him.
Were they running from me?
I swayed on my feet.
Confused and contorted faces stared at me.
Mouths wrought into screams.
A strangled, rasping noise escaped me.
The room staggered a little, struggled to find its balance. The noise levels crept up. The lights became fireflies; their effervescence burned snaking light trails across my retinas, sodium shooting stars.
The people of Row K fell away like wilting flowers and someone threw a club at my head. I shifted my weight sideways and stumbled, the heavy club landed a sledgehammer blow, high between my right bicep and tricep. The pain should have been excruciating but instead it scarcely demanded my attention. The muscles constricted and started to seize. My arm hung uselessly at my side, a wooden artificial limb devoid of anything but aesthetic function.
I used my left hand to throw the knife at my assailant and
As I nonchalantly chewed my stolen snack I let my knife slide from its sheath in to my open palm and patted the thin wooden club at my belt with my other hand.
I was ready.
They were entirely focused on her.
The man nearest to her took something small from his pocket. The second man rubbed his bottom lip with the back of his hand whilst unhooking a thick wooden club from his belt. His knuckles were white as he gripped it. I noticed the first man had a syringe. I glanced at the two ringside and one was staring directly at me; mouth agape, he was shouting something that was inaudible above the crowd tumult. I relished my observational awareness, my senses were heightened, taut, like a fine glass wire ready to pick up any vibration or change in the air. My Vanguard Slayer training kicked in and I embraced the adrenalin and aggression, the building force behind my physical inertia and my stillness of purpose and mind. It did not matter how out of practice I was; how long it had been since I had left. The reason why was also inconsequential, all that mattered was this second, this inevitability, this fight.
I existed entirely in the moment, became the moment, the action and the consequence, the cause and effect.
I tapped the shoulder of the hyena nearest to me and he turned into the handle of my club as I brought it crashing in to his bulbous, pock filled nose; a pestle into its rotten mortar. He fell backwards like a sack of sticks, already unconscious and sprawled across the popcorn filled laps of two bemused audience members who were surprised, as if wondering how the mesh of the ring had not contained the fight. The first man spun as I quickly flipped the club in the air, caught it handle first and brought the heavy end down into his solar plexus. A massive gush of foul smelling air belched out across his uneven, jagged teeth, and he doubled over. I felt a sharp stinging sensation in my thigh as he fell. Sickly warmth radiated from my thick muscle. I looked down to see the empty syringe hanging from my leg like a mosquito that had died in the act of injecting anticoagulant. Revolted, I rammed the club back down and it settled with a hard wet smack into the back of his skull. It was an instinctual action borne out of the disgust for the possible concoction of barbiturates and diseases that could now be coursing through my system. It was more dumb Mudhead Police than Slayer though, and Sergeant Bleecker would not have approved of my reaction or the fact that I had been stuck in the first place.
The club stayed where I had left it.
People near me were screaming but it sounded like their voices were being filtered through thick layers of muslin into a duller, more distant tone; like the whole world was having a party next door. I blinked to try and clear my vision and turned to ringside again. I had lost sight of the spotter but could see the heavier one of the observers stepping on the same toes I had stepped on moments ago, storming down row K. People fleeing into the aisles were impeding him.
Were they running from me?
I swayed on my feet.
Confused and contorted faces stared at me.
Mouths wrought into screams.
A strangled, rasping noise escaped me.
The room staggered a little, struggled to find its balance. The noise levels crept up. The lights became fireflies; their effervescence burned snaking light trails across my retinas, sodium shooting stars.
The people of Row K fell away like wilting flowers and someone threw a club at my head. I shifted my weight sideways and stumbled, the heavy club landed a sledgehammer blow, high between my right bicep and tricep. The pain should have been excruciating but instead it scarcely demanded my attention. The muscles constricted and started to seize. My arm hung uselessly at my side, a wooden artificial limb devoid of anything but aesthetic function.
I used my left hand to throw the knife at my assailant and
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