Butterflies

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# Butterfly

Aquamarine landed silently on the leaf next to her father, her wings beating softly in the warm summer air. She loved flying on a night like this, when the heat that had baked the ground during the day was released in wave upon wave of warmth. It was the whole world breathing out, lifting her on its breath.

But that was the way that Aquamarine saw things, and her father considered her a frivalous creature.

“Father?”

Aquamarine’s father did not turn his eyes away from the battlefield. “Captain,” he replied flatly. He would only ever address her by her rank here on the field of battle. She would have traded every breath the world had just to hear him call her by her own name again.

“How goes it?”

Aquamarine’s father lowered his viewing glass. He looked weary, and his wings were drooping and gray.

“The grass continues its onslaught against the tree’s territory. The earthworms have broken through the northern sea shell barrier, there are slugs on the march …”

Aquamarine grabbed her father instinctively as he stumbled forward, his legs suddenly to weak to support him. His wings had turned a deeper gray, with barely a trace of their original bold red to be seen.

“When did you last sleep father?”

“I will sleep when the garden is secure, when our people are safe.”

Gently lowering her father down, Aquamarine rested beside him on the leaf. Beneath them, the sounds of the garden raged. The leaf trembled, and Aquamarine’s wings fluttered instinctively.

“Fly,” her father gasped. “Fly while you still can.”

“Shhh, there’s plenty of time. I’m only at my third moon.”

“This war has run for more than a hundred moons, child. My father fought, his father, his father before that. What are we fighting for, if not the freedom to fly?”

Aquamarine smiled. “Sometimes, father, I think you fight because you like it.”

“Hah,” the old man laughed. His wings flared with colour for a moment, an explosion of red and crimsons. Blood colours. Soldier’s colours. He struggled to his feet. “I suppose I might have one or two more moons in me yet, Captain.”

“Sir,” replied Aquamarine, and snapped off a clumsy salute before taking once more to the skies. The warm air bouyed her up over the field of battle and she thought, just for a moment, that she her father take his eyes away from the war that raged all around them to watch his daughter fly.

It was a war worth winning, she agreed. It was a war for the freedom to fly.

Blood in the Water

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The Synder Brothers weren’t smart people, but they were smart enough to know that when you got into trouble … when you got into real trouble … you went to see Cassius. And they were smart enough to know that they were in real trouble.

“You knock,” said Ray, the older brother and, by right of birth, the leader of this band of two.

“You knock,” replied George, the younger brother and, by lack of right of birth, the follower and the one carrying the blood soaked mass, bundled up in dirty sheets, that was the very trouble that the Synders needed Cassius to fix.

Ray shrugged and thumped on the door with his fist. His knuckles were bloody, just like the sheets, and left dark brown patches on the rough wood of the door. “He’d better be in.”

The door swung open soundlessly. “He’s in,” said Cassius, his voice like honey and poison at the same time. The Synders didn’t believe for a minute in all the voodoo bullshit that Cassius surrounded himself with, but even they had to admit that he had style. “Come on in, you’re late.”

Ray and George stepped warily into Cassius’ small shack. Cassius had the place done out to fool the tourists, a mess of skulls and candles and feathers, all the trappings a rube would expect of the Voodoo man, but it wasn’t that that made Ray and George uneasy. No, ignoring the voodoo stuff was one thing, but ignoring Cassius’ price was another. And there was always a price for Cassius’ help.

That was why people only came here when they were in real trouble.

“Put it down, man, and rest yourself,” said Cassius, pulling an old chair out from underneath a small table. George looked at his brother warily, waiting for the nod that meant it was OK to do as he was being told. Ray nodded, and pulled out a chair for himself. Dealing with Cassius was like dealing with a cornered snake; you didn’t make any sudden moves, and you kept your eyes on where his eyes were looking.

George stooped and dropped the bundle onto the floor. A small bare leg and pudgy foot popped out, and a small pink shoe bounced loose.

“Fuck’s sake, George!” spat Ray, snatching up the shoe and shoving it, and the leg, back inside the mound of bloody sheets. When he turned back to the table, Cassius was smiling, his yellow and black teeth a billboard that announced “YOU’RE FUCKED” to anyone who saw them.

“Guess I don’t need to ask what it is that you boys need then, huh?” he said, pulling a bent joint from a pocket in his waistcoat and lighting it from a candle.

“It was an accident,” said Ray, “George, he …”

Cassius held up his hands and blew out a plume of blue smoke that coiled like a viper in the air. “Brother, Cassius isn’t here to judge you. I’m just here to help.”

“For a price,” said Ray.

“For a price,” replied Cassius.

Ray reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled our a roll of dirty notes. There was blood on these as well, but it wasn’t Ray’s.

“This is all we’ve got,” said Ray, tossing the money onto the table.

Cassius raised an eyebrow, looking at the money curiously. “Funny thing is, I usually set the price, not the other way ’round.”

Ray swallowed. He’d gripped the snake now, and it looked like he had the end that bit. He looked at his brother, sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the pile of sheets that could send them both to prison, or the chair. It was all the kid could do not to break down in tears.

“I can get more,” said Ray. “But I’ll need more time. I’m good for the rest Cassius, I swear it, but we need help now. George he … he can’t go to prison.”

Cassius blew out another plume of smoke, another snake in the air that writhed past Ray, stinging his eyes.

“I don’t wanna hear it, brother,” said the voodoo man. “Accessory after the fact, and all that, yeah? You tell me what happened, I got to keep that shit secret if the cops coming knocking. Right now, I’m just a guy, you’re just a guy, and you want a favour. That’s it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Ray croaked, relief robbing him of his voice for a moment. “Just guys. I won’t let you down, Cassius.”

Ray held out his hand, and it hung in the air limply as Cassius picked up the money from the table and shoved it inside his waistcoat. “Follow me boys,” he said, picking his way across the small shack between the cramped furniture and voodoo paraphenalia, carefully avoiding the mound of bloody sheets in the middle of the floor. “Let’s go meet Sobek.”

Leaving the shack through the back door, Ray and George carried the bundle between them. It was only yards from Cassius’ back door to the edge of the swamp, and the ground was wet and treacherous underfoot. Cassius led the way, the glowing tip of his joint the only light other than the fat amber moon that lurked behind the clouds overhead.

“Ignore the sign,” said Cassisu with a chuckle, as the strange trio passed a sign admonishing passer’s by for “Feeding or Molesting” the alligators. “Although, I guess you two have already done all your molesting for the day, huh?”

Ray didn’t answer. If there was anywhere where Cassius was most dangerous, it was here, disappearing into the fertile green and brown world of the swamp. He’d heard a rumour once that Cassius had a family living in the swamp, somewhere.

They reached the edge of a small glade, where the ground gave way to dark, murky waters. Strange swamp things moved under the surface, scattering as Cassius crouched down and dipped his finger into the water. He swirled this way and that, making patterns that caused the water to move in strange ways.

“Look away, George,” said Ray to his brother. “Close your eyes.”

In the darkness of the water, something gleamed, and Ray got the impression that something was swimming up towards them from a depth far deeper than the swallow pool should have had. The water began to foam and swirl, is if it was going to drain suddenly away. Cassius smiled, his “FUCK YOU” grin, and yanked his finger out of the water as a pair of monsterous green and black jaws burst forth, snapping at the air with jagged teeth.

With a crash, Sobek landed on the ground, snarling and hissing. Ray had never seen anything like it. bigger than any ‘gator or croc’ he’d even seen, the creature was the size of five or six men. The ground sank underneath the creature’s broad, horned feet and its thick tail disappeared back into the water behind it. The jaws, longer than a man’s arm and leg together, grew still as Cassius lay his hand gently on the creature’s nose and whispered to it in whatever strange tongue voodoo men speak to such creatures in. Ray couldn’t understand it, could barely hear it, but the part of his brain that he had inherited from some long dead lizard insisted that there were words.

“Sobek accepts your offering,” Cassius said, “Place it here.”

Ray took the full weight of the bundle from George and lay it down in front of the gargantuan Sobek. Behind him, George whimpered like a child. Ray could smell piss and watched as a dark patch spread on the front of his brother’s jeans. Sobek’s nose dipped to the bundle, and snuffled at it.

Ray closed his eyes as the creature opened its massive jaws to slowly engulf the bundle. The sheets, the blood, the tiny leg, the shoe, and everything else that had remained mercifully hidden from view disappeared into the dark gulf of Sobek’s jaws. He kept his eyes tight shut through the noises that came next; snapping, crunching, popping, ripping. Sobek gobbled and chewed and swallowed down the Snyder Brother’s dirty little secret in mere moments.

“It’s over,” said Cassius, and Ray opened his eyes. The creature, Sobek, was gone … and so was George.

“There’s no evidence that will come back to you,” said Cassius. “That’s how it works. What Sobek eats is gone from the world as if it were never there. The girl’s parents won’t look for her, and even George will fade from your memory in time.”

“That’s … good,” said Ray. A numbness had crept over him. He wondered if it were simple shock, or whether this was what it felt like when Sobek’s teeth nibbled pieces out of your memory. “He … he didn’t scream …”

Cassius wrapped his arm around Ray and began to steer him away from the glade, back out of the swamp and away from the place where his brother had stood for the last time. “My gift to you,” said Cassius, “As a guy, to another guy, just doing a favour. It’s better that way. Otherwise, the screaming is the only thing you can remember, and you’ll never know why.”

Thanks to Maria Kelly for today’s writing prompt.

Chem

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Chem hadn’t seen a human for almost forty years, the day he came across the girl. He found her scavenging on the edge of the farm, digging for roots and grubs. She was using her hands, the humans had not reinvented tools yet, and it was her yelp as her fingers struck a hidden rock that alerted him. Chem’s hearing was acute enough to hear the petals of the plants in his garden unfold in the early morning sun, and the scream of a human was deafening by comparison.

Chem wondered if she knew what he was. Clearly, he was not an animal of any type. And plants, even in this new strange world that had grown from the corpse of the last, did not walk about on two legs. He thought perhaps that the human girl saw him for what he was; a slab of rock and clay, formed in a mould in a factory, and imbued with alchemical life my a process that had once been mystical, but that had become the property of scientists and industrialists. They hadn’t liked the word “Golum”, it wasn’t marketable. But that was what he was.

The girl had looked up at him, blonde hair matted with dirt and covering half her face, squinting in the sunlight, and held out her bloody hand. Chem had suspected that there were still humans, hiding underground. This was a young one, probably unschooled in their ways of evasion and cunning.

Chem’s own hand, eight fingered and two thumbed, dwarfed the girl’s as he reached down to her and crushed her head like a piece of overripe fruit. Blood and brains squired out from between his digits, splattering on the ground. The plants in the garden, despite their lack of legs, sensed the blood and shuffled anxiously.

“Always hungry,” said Chem, his voice a landslide of gravel, and smiled at his charges. He would have to hunt the other humans down, but for now there was the garden, and there was still so much work to do. It barely covered the continent, after all.

Whoever had replaced the golum’s instructions with the words “Save the Earth” clearly had no idea how big a job it really was.

Howler

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The bomber dipped, breaking through the clouds. They lit of amber, orange, and red, illuminated by the fires and explosions from the battle below. Searchlights stabbed up into the night sky, but the bomber flew through them invisibly, thanks to Cecil’s carefully painted runes and sigils on the great metal beast’s underbelly.

Kirk stood at the back doors, letting the wind jerk him this way and that. Bursting shells sent waves of pressure at him, buffeting the bomber even through the protective charms that had been cast on it before take off.

“Can you hear them?” asked Cecil. The warlock felt no need to announce himself. Even in the middle of a full scale war, he had no doubt that Kirk had heard him coming. “Can you hear the humans?”

“Yeah, I hear them,” replied Kirk. “Smell them too.”

Clinging onto a safety strap, Cecil edged gingerly to the open back doors of the bomber.

“You sure you want to be back here?” asked Kirk. “You can’t fly without your pitchfork, Cecil.”

“And you can’t fly at all,” replied the warlock bitterly.

“Don’t need to fly,” said Kirk, stepping confidently to the very edge of the doors, he feet hanging over the lip into empty space. “I land on my feet.”

“That’s cats.”

“Whatever,” said Kirk dismissively. “You’ll see soon enough.”

The bomber dropped suddenly, sending Cecil scrambling back along the length of the safety harness.

“I’ll be glad when this over,” Kirk said, raising his voice over the bomber’s now straining engines and the growing howl of the wind. “We can all go back to our rightful places.”

Cecil smiled, a little queasily. “That would be … nice.”

In the roof of the bomber, a large green light flared.

“That’s my queue,” said Kirk, and turned back towards the open doors.

“It’s the right thing you know,” shouted Cecil over the din of the bomber and the battle below, “It’s the right thing, what you’re doing. The humans, they’re just not ready, and if they keep digging …”

“I know,” Kirk called back, tightening the shoulder straps on his uniform. “And even if I didn’t, I won’t remember a thing tomorrow. Just a little hangover and a few bruises. Nothing a clean uniform and a hot shower won’t fix.”

Cecil knew he was lying. It was one of the things that a Warlock could always tell.

“Then I’ll see you in Berlin!” shouted Cecil.

Kirk raised a hand, a movement as close to a salute as he was ever likely to give anyone, and stepped out of the plane. Cecil listened intently, and smiled as Kirk’s own howl grew loud enough to drown out the engines, the battle, even the artillery.

For some jobs, only a wolfman would do.

The Reincarnation of The Shrew

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Wade drummed her painted fingernails on the steering wheel of the car. She hated this; a darkened car park, waiting for a mysterious informant, grinding her teeth because this was the week she quit smoking. She could feel her life descending into cliché. She felt flattened out, two dimensional, as if she was nothing more than one of the grainy telescopic lens photographs that her newspaper would have printed, and not a real person at all.

“Stop it,” she admonished herself. “Get a grip.”

Wade wasn’t given to flights of fancy normally, but her life had recently taken a turn into the bizarre and somehow, some way, likening herself to a photograph, wondering if she could be living on the printed page and not in the real world at all … well, she’d seen and heard stranger things in the last few months.

It was that damn inquiry, and all the new laws that had followed, that had changed everything. Now the censors were everywhere and investigative journalists like Wade were a dying breed, literally.

Still, the money was good.

Half an hour late, a car pulled into the car park and flashed its headlights. Wade got out of her car slowly. She kept her handbag slung over her shoulder, her hand inside gripping the butt of her pistol tightly.

She crossed the car park, her high heels clicking on the tarmac. The other car kept its high beams on, deliberately dazzling her, so that the person who got out to meet her was nothing more than a silhouette until he was right in front of her.

“Miss Wade?” the man asked. He was a small man, portly, and he had a curious smell about him. He was wearing overalls and heavy coat, a combination which was making him sweat heavily, further adding to his smell.

“Ms.” replied Wade. “And you’re late. Have you got it?”

The man smiling solicitously. “Yes, I have it. If you have my fee, that is …”

Wade reached into her handbag with her off-hand, never releasing her grip on her pistol. She pulled out a light brown envelope, stuffed with money. The portly man’s eyes bulged greedily, as if he could spend the money simply by looking at it hard enough.

“Goods first, then payment,” said Wade, sternly.

“Of course,” replied the portly man. He waddled off the boot of his car and returned a few moments later with a large shoe box. There were air holes punched in the top, and something scrabbled around inside.

“What the hell’s that?” asked Wade. “If you’re trying to screw me then I’ll …”

“Ms. Wade, Ms. Wade,” cooed the portly man, “Let me explain.”

He opened the lid of the box, and Wade peered inside. A scrawny, ragged looking animal looked back at her, and hissed its obvious displeasure. The portly man jammed the lid of the box shut before the creature could escape.

“I’ll say it again,” Wade growled, “What … the hell … is that?”

“It’s a shrew,” replied the portly man. “It’s a type of …”

“I know what a shrew is,” interrupted Wade. “What I want to know is why you’ve brought me that, when I clearly asked you to bring me a soul.”

“Ah well,” the portly man began to explain, “The problem was, the soul that you wanted, well … it had already been reincarnated. I did try to warn you when you asked me to track him down, he’d been dead for quite a while and you did say that he’d turned to Buddhism towards the end of his life. I think they get some kind of express pass, or something.”

Wade peered at the box suspiciously.

“So, that’s him, in there. He’s a shrew now.”

“Yes, precisely.”

“You’re sure?” Wade almost couldn’t believe she was asking the question. Whatever grasp she thought she had had on the world was quickly crumbling.

“Of course I’m sure. Trust me, when you get a good look at him, you can see it in his eyes.”

Wade chewed her lip, mulling the situation over. “So, what do I do with him?” she asked.

“Well, it’s a bit more complex than what we’ve been doing so far,” replied the portly man. “Recently deceased souls, drifting around, they’re only too happy to jump back into a body for a bit. This fellow on the other hand, well … he seems to quite like being a shrew. I’m afraid you’re going to have to do something a little drastic.”

Wade waited. If there was one thing that was true no matter what side of the line of sanity you were on, it was that some people liked to talk. The portly man was one of them, and Wade knew how to listen.

“You’re going to have to commit … shrewicide,” he said finally, and waited for Wade to laugh.

“I kill it?” she asked, her voice deadpan.

The portly man looked crest fallen. “Yes, basically. Kill the shrew, drink the blood, and wait. He won’t be able to help himself, Buddhist or not, he’ll get sucked straight into you.”

“And the memories, everything he knows?”

“Same as always, yours for the taking until he shakes himself loose.”

Wade tossed the envelope of money onto the bonnet of the car.

“This had better work,” she said, taking the shoe box from the portly man. “If I end up with a dead shrew and no story …”

“Have I ever let you down?” the portly man said, hastily counting his money before shoving the envelope in his pocket.

“Fair enough,” replied Wade. “Until next time.”

In his box, the shrew who was once a man skittered around.

“And you, my friend,” whispered Wade as she walked back to her car. “Get ready to give up all your little secrets. Tomorrow, you’re going to be back on the front page.”