Half Discovered Wings by David Brookes Page B

right. He was in complete agony, and he
could see and feel the experiences of the other three Teagues. His
pain was fourfold, the others having found their eternal home in
other places, and suffering for their sins. But gluttonous? Had
Teague been insatiable in life? He had been a healthy man. His
parents had both been hard working, especially his father, and his
physical appearance had shown that. Teague himself had once
possessed a physique that was impressive to any man or woman, and
he’d known it. Now his body was gone, most likely still rotting in
the same place that Gabel had left it, a hole steaming in the head,
burned right through and cauterised. His flesh had probably been
half eaten away by now, by the bats and the rodents.
    How long had
be been in Hadentes? How long had his mortal vessel been lying
there, in the mud and leaves, in the forest by the town? Had Gabel
felt anything for the loss of his friend, muttered any last words?
Had there been a funeral?
    Of course not!
Why would there be?
    You are learning ! said Charos. Like
everybody here, you learn fast. You are learning that your
iniquities carry consequences.
    ‘ I already knew that they would,’ he groaned. ‘I
knew it …’
    But you didn’t stop ?
    ‘No.’
    Why not ?
    ‘ Because…’ And there Teague’s thoughts stumbled. ‘Because …
that’s not who I was.’
    Then Charos surrounded him in smoke and laughed. Remember your sins, and be
penitent !
    ~
    Teague felt drained. Not of energy, though it was sapped, but
of money; he felt that he was growing poor, whilst Lucia was
growing rich. She’d asked him to return to the alley on several
occasions, and he had. Had she only wanted him for his money? She
knew how he felt. Was she taking advantage of him, or genuinely
wanting to see more of him?
    He clicked his tongue as he waited, watching the fading
sunlight. He was in his ancestral home, which the Teague bloodline
had occupied for over a dozen generations, going back even to
before the Conflict. Niu Correntia had been built around that
isolated home and two others, one of which was home to the current
mayor’s family. The other belonged to the church.
    The previous
month had been a strange one. He had no idea what he had become,
the “gift” his mother had given him. Now long dead and buried, she
lay in a small plot of land in the corner of the church graveyard
closest to the Teague household, not thirty feet from where he was
sitting. Grass had begun to grow over the grave, and as Teague
looked out the window in that direction, two small flowers quivered
in the cold wind between the sparse blades of green.
    When
she’d called him to her deathbed he’d expected a frail old woman
dying from tuberculosis. Instead he’d found a woman full of
strength and power, beckoning him to her side, whispering so that
he would have to lean closer … After she’d sunk her teeth into his
shoulder, she’d said:
    ‘ Blood for blood. Smell and transform. Taste and transform. The
gift your father left me I now leave to you.’
    In the month or so that passed since her death, Teague had
been through the painful transformation three times. Each of those
nights he sat in his father’s old oaken chair and looked at his
furred hands, watched the light reflected in his smooth black
claws, clicking his toothy jaws together as he swiftly changed from
man to beast.
    He’d felt certain urges, but had passed them off as grief. He
had been in such pain the whole week after his mother’s demise. It
felt like his heart was being plucked from his chest with each
breath.
    The third transformation had been much later than the last,
after he cut his forearm whilst repairing the roof. The smell of
blood, even his own, was all it took.
    That third night was when he recognised the pain for what it
was: a hunger for something he had never tasted. He thought that it
might be blood, or meat, for was that not what animals ate? But he
had sniffed the salted meat from the