Blood On Borrowed Wings: A Dark Fantasy Thriller by Darren Stapleton Page A

Tears welled in his swollen eyes as he searched the room for me.
    He continued talking, ‘Those pictures would have finished us. All of us. We were told to bring you here, intact, to not harm either of you and keep you here and await further instructions. That’s all. That’s it. All of it.’
    ‘So why did you ‘harm’ me?’
    ‘The drugs were meant to knock you out cold, they always work, we even doubled the dosage. It was like tranquilising a horse. It took ages. We nearly lost it. And got busted up in the process.’
    ‘You’re more used to girls, aren’t you?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Girls come along more quietly, I suppose.’
    ‘This isn’t about them.’
    ‘Isn’t it?’
      He was quiet.
    ‘Are there any more guards here?’
    ‘No, just us three, like I said. You put the others out of action.’
    ‘Good. Wait here.’
    He closed his eyes and started to shake. His teeth were chattering.
    I went to find Pan to make sure she was OK. I found her rubbing her jaw but still looking down the corridor with her goggles in place and the crossbow raised and aimed as instructed.
    ‘Time's up. Get ready, we are leaving. Go to the end of the corridor. Wait by the external door. Do not open it and go outside. I will join you in a couple of minutes. Stay alert.’ She didn’t ask any questions. Just nodded and made her way, zombie-like, down the passageway. The clip-clop of her shoes echoed like thunderclaps off the bare, dark walls. She was in shock and her value as an early warning system was negligible at best. I had to get moving and get us both out of here to somewhere safe.
    I went back into the cell.
    Ghyll had his head down and he was muttering something.
    Maybe he was praying.
    I did not care.
    ‘The girls,’ I said.
    He looked up.
    ‘This is about them,’ I said. ‘All of them.’
    ‘But you gave me your word. You’re an Elite Vanguard Slayer.' He blinked and looked for me, trying to penetrate the tar veil of the blackened room to find some humanity or compassion or hope. His enlarged pupils looked like bottomless wells, brimming with black ink, starting to overflow.
    I stared into his moral anomie.
    If he could have seen me he would have shrank away from my gaze, wilted, finding nothing but confirmation of his own twisted damnation and end of days.
    I removed the knife from its sheath.
    It came silently into the room and made the blackness seem somehow darker; puncturing the atmosphere with purpose and a deathly intent.
    ‘Ex,’ I said.

How quickly the bad taste that business can sometimes leave in our mouths, is washed away with celebratory champagne.
    Economics: The Elasticity of the Credit
    E. Butler

CHAPTER 16
     
    ‘You got the list?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘Credits?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘So we have just got to return this harpoon contraption, then we can go home?’
    Croel did not answer. In his opinion Mckeever shared a female trait that had annoyed him in most of his encounters with the fairer, and if not fairer, then at least opposite, sex: that of stating the obvious.
    ‘I said…’
    ‘I heard what you said. It was stultifying and obvious. It was a question you already have an answer for, but you think it is easier to ask me for confirmation rather than dredge the thin, unworn ruts and furrows of your own short term memory. Yes. Yes, and fucking yes, are the answers. I’ve got Vedett’s instructions, I have got the money and after we have dropped that 'contraption' off, we can go home. I need my sleep. I need to think about the ramifications of the rest of this proposition and above all I need…’
    Mckeever angled left and began his descent towards the large bright yellow Zeppelin where the Orca's crew were housed.
    ‘…fucking respite,’ Croel said through gritted teeth and followed.

    Leaving the relative safety of the Edgelands and flying out over the rim always gave Croel a feeling of general unease, despite the early morning sunlight. He had seen windsharks in action, had seen