Black Feathers

70

The mud on Gordon’s clothes and boots dried and fell away. With every step he kicked up dust. In many areas of the town, the powder of destruction still hung in the air like mist. He was soon coated with enough of it that people didn’t notice him anymore. Those who’d chased him, too exhausted to keep up, had fallen behind and given up. Once again, uncommon strength had come to him from somewhere. Even with his backpack he was faster.

When he’d shaken off his pursuers, he kept away from the main road. It was more difficult and certainly more dangerous tacking back and forth through the side streets towards the town centre, but he felt safer, nonetheless.

There were many dead in the streets and each one he came across shocked him. Many had been dealt their final blow by falling stone, timber or brick, some of them crushed or suffocated by the weight of collapsing buildings.

The Black Light still freeze-burned his fingertips, rising there whenever he passed wounded or unconscious survivors. He tried to ignore it but the more suffering he witnessed, the brighter shone the darkness from his hands.

In one street his path was blocked by two houses collapsed towards each other and now united in ruin. In front of one house, eyes bright with pain and disorientation, a man sat with a concrete lintel in his lap. The man’s feet lay pointing away from each other at 9 and 3 o’clock. He saw Gordon and shrugged, looking sheepish.

He nodded to his lap.

“Stuck,” he said.

Gordon looked around like a kid about to steal a bicycle. There was no movement, but muffled pleas for help came from many of the buildings. It was easier to ignore them when walking, not so easy standing still. His hands thrummed. He wanted to run. The man on the ground smiled up at him, either delirious or particularly lucid.

“It’s ironic when you think about. I’d been meaning to fit new upstairs windows and replace all the concrete lintels with steel. Now the whole house has fallen down and the only thing not broken is the bloody lintels.” The man laughed a strange, alien laugh and winced. “Still, at least I didn’t fit the new windows. I’d have had to refit them when I rebuilt the house.”

Gordon smiled in spite of himself.

He wondered if the man knew his injuries were fatal. No help was coming and the only thing this man would build any time soon was a colony of worms. He knelt at the man’s side and took a closer look at the damage. The lintel had hit him just below his hips. Both of his legs had been crushed like straws at the moment of impact. The heavy length of concrete had pinched the flesh of the man’s thighs almost to the point of severance.

“I need to move this off your legs,” said Gordon.

The smile was weak this time.

“I do wish you wouldn’t. I’m quite comfortable as I am.”

“I’m going to help you.”

“That’s really not necessary.”

“You’ll die if I don’t.”

“Oh, I know,” said the man. “I know that. It’s fine, really.”

“No. It’s not fine.”

Obsidian flames leapt from his fingers. The man didn’t seem to notice and for that Gordon was thankful. He reached under the near end of the concrete lintel.

“I’d much rather you didn’t disturb the status quo, young man.”

Gordon locked eyes with the man.

“It’s going to be all right. Honestly. I just need you to promise me one thing first.”

Overhead, crows circled and Gordon wished them away.

The man look amused.

“Me promise you something?”

“Never tell anyone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just don’t tell anyone you saw me. Never tell anyone what I did. That’s all I ask.”

The man, fully engaged in considering the ridiculous request, screamed in pain and surprise when Gordon freed his legs from the lintel. It came away bloody and the moment he lifted it blood pulsed in generous washes from the trough it had created in the man’s flesh. Below the dust on his face, the man drained pale.

Gordon tossed the lintel away as though it were no more than a heavy branch. The Black Light arced between his palms. His entire body shuddered with the build-up. The man stared at his lap where the speed of leakage signalled his end. His voice was a whisper.

“I can’t really see what’s that’s achieved, young man.”

Gordon dropped back to his knees and, to the sound of distant cawing, he grabbed the man’s thighs just below the crush point. The man’s body stiffened, white suddenly showing all around his irises. Behind his pupils, dark fire burned. The depression in both thighs inflated and his feet turned upwards. His legs shortened slightly, pulling off the heels of his shoes. The torn, blood-wet fabric of his trousers remained, as did the stains of his leaked blood on the dusty ground. But his smashed legs were whole again.

The man looked at Gordon, who now stood, spent and relieved by the discharge of power, studying his palms.

“That was… unexpected,” he said.

Experimentally, he moved one foot then the other. He bent both legs towards his chest and put his shoes back on properly.

“This isn’t possible. I’m… speechless.”

Gordon recovered himself. It was time to move on.

“Stay that way,” he said to the man.

“I don’t know how to thank you. I mean that literally.”

“Just keep your promise.”

Gordon turned and moved away through the rubble.

“Who are you?” the man called after him.

Gordon kept moving. He heard the man clambering over the debris behind him.

“I’m no one,” he said. “Please. Don’t come after me.”

After that the man was silent and made no move to follow.

For the rest of that day, the Black Light rose in his hands like sparkling shadows. Whenever he thought he was unobserved he helped those he could, asking nothing in return but their silence before moving on. Night fell and he knew he could not stay in the town. People were talking about him, looking for him despite their promises.

He left the ruins behind him and walked into the darkness, knowing his only safety lay in putting as much distance between himself and the town as he could.