Wing-Clipper Read online

  WING-CLIPPER

  For Humans, For Demons - Volume II

  NICHOLAS J. EVANS

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Courier

  2. Native Intellect

  3. Half-Life

  4. Indigo

  5. Luna

  6. Cloud Cascade

  7. Hollow Light

  8. Forest Haven

  9. Dark

  10. Soul Sleep

  11. Midnight Hymn

  12. Secret Sun

  Jackson’s journey continues in…

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Jackson Still Needs You

  The Parliament House

  Copyright © 2021 by Nicholas J. Evans.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review .

  ISBN: 978-17369819-2-4

  The Parliament House

  www.parliamenthousepress.com

  Cover Art by: Shayne Leighton

  Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, Places and Events are products of the author's imagination, and are used factitiously. These are not to be construed or associated otherwise. Any resemblance to actual locations, incidents, organizations, or people (living or deceased) is entirely coincidental.

  Prologue

  Without the streetside staple of a Church, Manhattan bled.

  The wound flowed in shades of cement gray and rotting brown. It festered. The city suffered, and the people who inhabited the ruins dissipated like shadows beside a flickering bonfire. They scavenged what was left of long-forgotten riots—the ones that left stained glass shards shattered on the street like confetti and burnt the crafted oak pews in ceremonial pyres. One day, the city was forgotten and changed eternally. It was skeleton compared to New Ashton, where flesh still clung to bone. Yet some shadows remained in the rubble. Some survived, roaches in a nuclear holocaust. But there were those shadows that came from outside the remains of the city. These phantoms wandered the halls of what was once peak civilization.

  One ghost found its way to these ruins.

  Bitter winter tugged at the ragged overcoat of the shadow. The figure knelt amongst the sea of white; its soft embrace nipped at his knees as they rested amongst the drift.

  So much had changed. Nineteen years, and the world turned as if there was not so much as a hiccup to startle it from its course. New Ashton was behind the shadow now, a heap of ash left in the wake of his fire with the seasonal winds scattering its remains away from his memory. Those memories burned like the embers of a doused flame, and now only the cold night remained to gnaw at what was left. The shadow let the frost gently lick his cheeks while the snow fell in a dance of flurries before his hardened glare. Fingertips rested on the cold steel of the pistol, running over the etched words that seemed so foreign to him now; the spark of memory was like lightning as it reflected images of his hands carving the words with the tip of a kitchen blade along the barrel. As the chill set into his bones, it was gone once more.

  “Sometimes, I dream of her,” said the shadow. His voice was low and hoarse as it crackled like stones tumbling over ice. “Jennie…”

  Footsteps sunk deep into the snow behind him. A new shadow danced over the decayed brick walls of the alleyway. They came slowly, rhythmically—a drum beat of boot soles pressing against the fresh snowfall in a steady, determined stride.

  “It’s like…. It is like she’s right there, right in front of me.”

  The kneeling shadow’s eyes scanned left to right; his fingers tapped the trigger lightly. His face tightened into a scowl defining every trench of wrinkles across the rough terrain of his brow and cheeks. The frigid air cut through every cell of his flesh, through the damp coat and down nearly frozen legs. A graying mane hung with icicles, dangling from a rusted gutter to frame clenched jaws and deathly pale skin.

  “She...” He paused. “She says, ‘Join me in the stars. Hold me amongst the darkness as we find peace in the North-Lane.’ But I can’t even face her. I whisper, ‘Not yet,’ but the words are gone even before she is. Then I’m alone in the dark once again.”

  “Nice story,” the other answered behind the first. “You came all the way to the decayed corpse of New York to share it?”

  “Wasn’t for you,” the first grunted.

  Permafrost crumbled from the rusted and weathered gears of his knees as they groaned to life. A furnace in his gut burned oil, and his veins pumped hot gasoline with an ignition explosion. Gunpowder burst. The second shadow dropped from the bullet's snap, just as the first rose again, and the snow adopted the crimson spread. A cry echoed against the walls, but not one roach crawled from the rubble of Manhattan to meet it. It faded out alone in the night, until it was forgotten to the snowdrift. Just another whimper in the dead of night.

  “S-Shit, shit!” The cry called from the ground; the new shadow clutched its leg. Beside him, the snow cut a perfect stencil of a knife that had fallen from his hand. “You prick. You don’t know how screwed you are. We won’t stop coming and he won’t stop hunting. Y-You’ll be buried alive, you—”

  “Save it,” the first shadow shot in and placed his boot on the other’s neck. “Tell me where Carter is hiding. I know he’s here. Tell me, and you’ll at least save me a bullet.”

  “Carter? F-Fuck… you….” answered the squirming man under the boot. “You’re a dead man, Jackson Crowe.”

  Jackson grunted with a smirk. “I already know.”

  Another gunshot finished the conversation.

  Snow crept down from a black sky, like small specks of stars finding a home on the soft, limp body below. In a moment, he was wrapped in a light blanket of snow as white turned red around him. Jackson stared down at the assailant. His breath streamed out of his nostrils like a steam engine and poured into the air as dense fog. All was silent again, all but the sound of his wet jacket whipping and snapping in the winter wind that tumbled through the alleyway.

  “Just a dream, Order,” another called out from around the corner of the building.

  Jackson did not budge, a statue amongst the rubble of broken buildings.

  “You’re getting better at spotting the Shells. This one didn’t have a second Dust, just an empty body and a visitor, like the last bunch. He’s really ramping up the search party; they’ll find you soon enough. At least, if they work for him and not Carter.”

  “It’s been a year, Griffin. Maybe more. He could come himself at any time now, but he keeps sending fucking Shells,” Jackson wolfishly barked. “Carter, The Ender… No, we are fine. We will find Carter on our own if these bastards won’t talk.”

  Jackson’s teeth ground together. Cheeks stung from the raw cold; eyes burned in their sockets. Griffin came into his view, nothing but a shadow himself until the moonlight gave him highlights of features, though he was better without them. It was a tall, skeletal thing, shrouded in a hooded leather bomber and shredded black denim jeans. His boots, worn down to scraps, bloomed up his ankle with tightly pulled laces. His hood smothered his face in shade, but Jackson knew what sat just below those piercing icy eyes.

  Bandages, wrapped from up his neck just below his gaze. The off-white cloth, stained and frayed from age, clung his face and throat tightly and he exhaled with a plume of hot breath forced from the cover of his wraps.

  “Besides,” Jackson said as he began to stroll away, “I lived with a Shell for a while. I better know how to pick them out of a crowd.”

  1

  Courier

  “Well, sir,” said the child. “I daresay it
has been a grueling thirteen months, and yet still no Order to report.”

  The child sat much more proper than he should and spoke much older than expected. His hair was slicked and parted, and the bright, radiant glow of a cheap lamp bounced with sheen from the combed strands just above his shallow, sorrowful eyes. Pale flesh was wrapped in a gray tweed suit complete with complementary leather elbow pads, and at the bottom of the ensemble was a set of hand-sewn loafers that any half-decent twentieth century lawyer would fawn over as they dangled over the edge of the couch. The boy conjured a grin that gave new meaning to ear-to-ear, with worm-pink lips stretching to their zenith and large ivories that flashed like a menacing beast. Aldrich happily stared, with fading gray eyes, at the thin figure before him.

  He carefully began to peel the pages of a thick hardcover before the thin man shot a hand down and flicked it shut again. His fingers pressed on the closed tome as he leaned forward.

  “Tell ya what, Aldy,” said the menacing man. “I’ve already spent enough time countin’ fingers for each of my guys he puts down, and I’m starting to add in some toes. So let me ask you…” The thin man stood up, black suit painted onto him and a grin even larger and more hideous than the boy’s smeared across his boney face. His long fingers coiled around his dark lapels as he adjusted his jacket just right, cracking his neck as he did so. “Where the fuck is my Order?”

  The boy grimaced and parted the book once more.

  “Your lordship”—he scoffed—“we followed his trail until, shockingly, there was a trail no longer. We left New Ashton, but as we ventured north, the trail went cold. And if I may, you have us taking on additional cases as well due to his sudden departure. We—”

  “Let me remind you then,” the thin figure interrupted. “That I could pluck your pathetic Dust from that corpse and plant you in another, Aldrich. By the time you reach the North-Lane, you’ll have lived in every single body within this country. Now, find the Order of Dust.”

  A burly figure, blocking the window with broad shoulders and a mountainous back, turned to look at the two squabbling in the empty bones of the apartment. New Ashton danced on the streets below under the morning sky as snow fell like dandelion seeds blown by a child. His thick, oak tree arms folded into one another against his chest, and he glared at the two with a wrinkled, sour dark face. His brow twitched in annoyance, and he lifted a hand to rub the smooth skin of his scalp and then rake through the tangled black coils of his facial hair before finding a home against his chest once more.

  The thud of his boots echoed out as he approached them and the light from the window cut around his silhouette and carved out the image of his dark denim jacket and jeans. The Arm of the Savior sat on his left hip with its amethyst barrel and golden accents gleaming like a gem.

  “Maybe he’s dead,” the mountainous figure called to the other two.

  “Ah, Coldin Kurt, so nice of ya to finally join the conversation,” answered the suited man. “Then it appears your dead man is haunting the rubble of Manhattan, ’cause he shot one of my guys just last night and left without a trace.”

  “New York?” Coldin queried. “Azazel, that place is basically a ghost town, whatever is left of it. You know that—he definitely knows that. Why would Jackson head there? Hell, I know some inmates who’d never hang around there. Basically a cesspool these days.”

  Azazel flashed his rows of porcelain tombstones toward Coldin; he flinched. “I gotta say, I do love hearin’ about Hell every now and then. Call it, I don’t know, nostalgic.”

  Coldin stood on the dull carpet, his eyes fixed on the confines of the slick gums that clasped the joker’s grin.

  “Ya know, Officer,” the Ender spoke and approached with delicate, graceful steps as if to glide across the floor. “It took a lot of doin’ to… get you the Sight to see these pearly whites. Been a couple months, think you’d start gettin’ used to seein’ ’em by now. If a certain lady upstairs finds out ya got ’em for nothin’, then she ain’t gonna be too happy that we had to give the gifts of the Order out again so soon.”

  The large man grunted. “Like a car crash, I guess. Don’t matter how many times you see it, you still don’t expect it. Now, tell us about New York so we can get on our way.”

  Azazel laughed, “First, ya got another job to do, just for pissing me off. Then ya go find the Order. No fuckin’ up this time.”

  “If you wanna call us not finding him at all ‘fucking up,’ then do it. But we take a job and that pushes the clock. That minute hand is a tricky one, and Jackson won’t stay in one spot too long. Longer we wait, better chance of him getting killed or getting away.”

  Coldin inhaled a sharp breath after the words left his lips. Time had made him grow comfortably irritated with The Ender at times, and that comfort let him slip up with how he spoke to the dangerous deity. His eyes never left Azazel, but he shuddered at the thought of what this devilish creature could do to him.

  Aldrich shut his book with a loud thwap, then proceeded to scoot himself off of the couch. He made adjustments to his clothes and stretched like an old man trying to re-socket his bones into place. Not a single crack or pop to be heard, but he did let out a long, cat-like yawn before rounding the couch to meet the other two. He took a step, then paused to look down at the rug that his shoe pressed into.

  The spot, he remembered.

  Memories flashed of the deep red pool that had hardened into a scab of lifeless brown in this very spot. He remembered Jackson’s pain when it was removed, like they had taken away a part of him; the part that tethered him to this existence while the rest floated at the gate of the North-Lane just waiting to ascend. Aldrich thought of Ayres, the memory of her removing the dried blood with grunts of aggravation made him wince when he thought of the last time they had all been together. A sigh flowed from Aldrich, then he stepped forward again.

  “My giant of a friend is right, you know,” his refined London tongue snapped up to them. “Jackson Crowe has nurtured far too much pain, too much hatred, to not do something less than calculated. I believe our dear Order seeks more blood than he can carry; more cold revenge than can satiate a ravenous thirst. Blood for Ayres, blood for his love, and more blood just for himself. Ender, this manhunt must end. Coldin, along with myself, should seek him at once. We need to ease his mind, comfort the Dust that still remembers the man he once was.”

  Aldrich paused reflectively. His small, pale hand reached into the inner pocket of his blazer and retrieved a flat, silver case. He popped it open and showed the long, white cylinders that ended in golden filters, then retrieved one to place at his lips. With a spark of fire from a lighter within the case, smoke began to rise and flip like a wailing poltergeist toward the apartment’s white ceiling. It slid along the flat surface of the ceiling, an ocean of twirling gray.

  “We leave tonight,” said the boy in a huff of tobacco smoke.

  The Ender, smile fading back as his brow began to ruffle and point downward, gawked at the smoking child. He adjusted his suit and stretched out his neck before giving it a bend to either side that let out a series of uncomfortable cracking and popping sounds, then he gave a glance up to Coldin and another back down to Aldrich. The silence flickered between them. The only sound that hummed on was the crackle of the cigarette when it pressed between the boy’s lips. Azazel looked increasingly impatient. It was a look that had only grown and developed over the passing months since Jackson Crowe had vanished. The Order’s rampage up the eastern coast had only made his scowl deepen further.

  The smile began to push itself back to the corners of his mouth.

  “Well, seems like we got ourselves an agreement then,” Azazel said, black smoke billowing out from behind him like a diesel engine.

  Coldin and Aldrich glowered at the figure as the rich smog began to envelop him, swallowing all but that horrible smile. The plume of darkness puffed out more, reeking of ash and sulfur.

  “This last job is basically on your way,” Azazel spat at them a
s the smoke begin to fade out completely, along with his body. “Left the details there for ya, happy huntin’, boys.”

  It spun like a black swirling vortex in a column between the light rug and the ceiling, and as it spun, it shrunk and became thinner until it vanished completely. The smog was gone, with no trace of its existence to be found; even the smell faded with it. In its place, laying humbly on the ground where the blood had once been so long ago, was a single unsealed envelope. It sat like a beige gift, and both half-expected it to have their names written on the front.

  Aldrich took another drag as Coldin approached the envelope and flipped it around to its front cover.

  “It’s… a party invitation?”

  Aldrich raised a brow. “Well, are we to be the guests of honor at this banquet?”

  Coldin pulled out the contents and scoured the single thick paper he retrieved.

  “Fuck…” he said and stood back, walking back to Aldrich. He passed over the papers quickly, and the small pale hands grabbed them as the cigarette dangled from Aldrich’s lips like an old Christmas light.

  “My word… more Scarabs?”

  “Yup, probably. Not much detail, just a gathering in southern Jersey that will be… hard to miss,” Coldin answered, crumpled the paper, and began to stomp toward the door. “Look at the time and place. We’re gonna be late.”

  Aldrich reluctantly placed his book down on the couch and gave it a childish pat on the cover. The boy dropped from the couch and slowly followed behind Coldin, plumes of smoke trailing from his lips with each inhale and exhale, and a subtle cough to follow it. He gave a glance around the apartment before leaving, as he always did. The couch, the recliner, the emptiness of it all. They had lived there so long now that it was nearly home, and he shut the door as they entered the hallways as if yearning to return already.