FanStory.com - The Dark Knights - BD2by Fleedleflump

As dusk descended over London like a lead storm cloud, I stirred my coffee and squinted at the sun's progress. Between the thoroughly eviscerated fortune teller who helped my cause and the bisected actor who'd posed as me, I was rapidly running out of allies. As night stole its way across the landscape, a sense of black dread invaded my thoughts.

I'd spent the day trying to get hold of anyone who might help me, but to no avail. The baby I'd been given to protect had spent most of the time sleeping, even when I started examining him for signs of wings. The Death demon, or grim reaper, or Mr Black - he scared the crap out of me regardless of what I chose to call him - had called it 'angel's get'. Did angels have babies? I frowned, unsure if I even believed in angels, but when you've seen zombies, demons, and sub-dimensions, a divine creature with a striking resemblance to Ben Affleck just seems like par for the course.

I shuffled closer to the window and pressed my forehead to the glass, enjoying its coolness. My office was crummier than a bread graveyard and so typical you couldn't walk from one side to the other without tripping over the cliches. That meant dreary, wood-panel decor, piles of paper so tall they got used as stools, and a light that flickered at ominous moments. It did, however, give me a view over the city, even if it was through a greasy dirt filter.

"If the world spent the rest of eternity in darkness, would we cope?" My voice sounded dull to my ears, even with the bassy reverberation from the window. "If our shadows stood in front of us instead of behind, if the sun became a black void in the sky and the air was packed with death and malice, and all the shit we saw in our nightmares became dreams of relief ... Would we survive?"

Amy tutted behind me. "You can be a morbid bastard sometimes, boss. Snap out of it!"

"I feel like an arsehole, Amy. I've handled this case with all the sensitivity of a concrete dildo. It's no wonder I feel sore. Raffer's decorating the floor of a church in Horseferry Road, and the fortune teller's deader than Bernard Manning's underpants. I've never seen anything like this Death demon - not even that fuck-faced assassin compared. I can't keep you safe, Amy, and I can't protect this baby."

"Do you really think it's Mr Black?" Her voice seemed uncharacteristically meek and I glanced towards her. She shook - subtly, but I was looking close. I didn't know if she'd told me everything about her encounter with Death, but I knew I'd give my right arm to keep her from going through it again.

"I'm certain of it."

We were matching stares in mutual acknowledgement of fear when the phone rang and I almost pissed myself in shock.

I was closer, so I grabbed the receiver and said, "Radshaw's Investigations - we pee ourselves so you don't have to."

"You're fired, Radshaw. We want the baby back."

"What, no small talk? Who the fuck is this?"

There was a sigh at the other end. "This is Sir Banbury, of the Knights. We have changed our minds about your task, Mr Radshaw. Please return the child to us immediately. You will be paid for your time until now."

His voice had the strain of somebody under duress, though he was trying to sound commanding to cover it. A thousand thoughts belted through my head at once. Not only were the Knights back on the scene, they were contacting me. Whilst it was possible they simply believed I was no longer up to the task, my gut was playing death metal riffs on my heart strings. When my instincts interfere with my biology, I make a point of listening. Somebody had got to the Knights, and I thought I knew who.

"Enough with the theatrics," I said. "I'm sure that voice usually has people flapping like a foreskin at a brit milah, but I don't frighten so easily. You want to see me, I want to see you, so tell me where to go."

There was a heavy breath over the phone followed by a muffled discussion. Then Sir Banbury's voice said, "The Buerk and Dragon, as soon as you can."

With a click, the line went dead.

I grabbed my coat from the old fashioned hanger by the door and threw a look at Amy. "No way I'm giving this baby back to the Knights. Something's spooked them. Without any other leads, I'm going to find out what or who it is. Keep him safe, Amy, and if you so much as have a weird or scary thought, get the fuck out of here. Go to my mum's place - she knows who you are - and text me something meaningless that won't give away your destination."

She nodded, her expression nervy but resolute. "Watch it, boss. I don't trust them."

*****

As I entered the Knights' safe house, I felt about as welcome as diarrhoea on the space shuttle. Silent faces stared from the shadows of hoods in the pools of darkness at the edges of the common room. The Buerk and Dragon was an ancient pub down a dismal alley in one of those areas of London that feels like the dark ages never ended. Hiding in a back street that sane people didn't know about, it should have died of financial starvation years ago.

There was fear in every gaze I met - the kind of primal terror that makes Wes Craven's best work look like Disney. Mr Black had put the willies up these guys something rotten, and that made me nervous. If fear makes a man do strange things, the Knights were about as rational as psychos in hockey masks at summer camp. And they ran a machete shop.

"Where is the angel child?" growled a voice from behind the bar. I looked into bright blue eyes beneath a blond crew cut. I gulped, recognising the offspring of a zealot and a crunchy nut cornflake when I saw one.

"And you are?" I noted with relief that my voice was steady and loaded with sarcasm; just how I like it.

His blond eyebrows drew together in a scowl. "I am Sir Wilberford, the new Deacon around here, and I asked you a question." Wilberford had a jaw like a monster truck bumper and an expression like Ray Winstone with his bollocks crushed in a vice. Against all sense, I decided to turn the handle.

"He's somewhere safe, as opposed to here. I take my charges seriously, Wilberford. You're not getting a sniff of the baby until I'm satisfied of your motives."

I'd have said it wasn't possible, but his eyes widened and his voice roared louder. "The Angrath is not your concern, Radshaw! It must be handed to the Black One, there is no other option."

I walked over to the bar to show I wasn't intimidated. It wasn't true, but I was damned if I'd let him see that. I also got a moment to think. The Knights I knew were loopier than a slinky on a rollercoaster, but giving a baby to a demon just wasn't in their nature. Something had occurred here beyond a change of heart. And what the fuck was an Angrath? I placed my hands on a sticky bar mat and matched stares with the Arian Sir Wilberford, fighting the urge to tell him Father Adolf was proud.

"You're having a giraffe, aren't you? I always knew you guys were a couple of tits short of a whorehouse, but this is taking the piss." I looked round the dingy pub for effect. "The guy who dropped the baby off at my office thought there were other options. Where is he?"

"Sir Gentry has ... retired."

I scrunched the bar mat in a fist as a sickening hunch did the same to my gut. "Permanently?"

"Medically." Wilberford didn't bat an eyelid as he spoke, giving nothing away.

"And what, exactly, will Mr Black do with this 'Angrath' if he gets it?"

The Knight's face remained utterly impassive. "What must be done to avert the Black Dawn we will face if we anger him. Radshaw, even you must know there are forces we should not meddle with; the primal drivers that shape existence. It is Black's day, his time of dominance, and that means we must capitulate. It is in his power and his remit to turn off the sun. If we defy him, he will render this plane a barren darkness ruled over by the eldritch bones of humanity."

The anger had been building in me as I listened to Wilberford's tirade. "Nice speech, mate, but I don't buy it. If he could do that, he would have. And any force that demands the sacrifice of tots, whatever you might call them, damned well deserves to be meddled with."

Wilberford sighed. "Debate is irrelevant, Radshaw. He will have the baby. Indeed," he turned to cast a significant look at the clock on the wall behind the bar. "Yes, I'd say he probably already does."

In a heartbeat, my lungs turned to ice. A wave of fear crashed against the beaches of my consciousness and I was glad the bar remained solid, or I might have drowned.

Through a thick fog I said, "How?"

"He was by the door when you entered, Radshaw." Wilberford's mouth filled my vision, twisting into a smirk. "He left the moment he saw you didn't have the Angrath." The lower lip was plump and glistening with amused spittle. "He'll be at your office by now." The upper lip, despite encroaching moustache, was clear and delineated with sensitive grooves. "We have kept you long enough."

Suddenly all I could see was the back of my fist. I don't think I've ever hit someone so hard. The punch had all my shock, outrage, and a half hour's tuition with Lennox Lewis in 2002 behind it. Time moved like we were all trapped in treacle as my knuckles burst those bastard lips against Wilberford's teeth. Then I felt my bones crunch as they came up against enamel. My skin and his grin gave way simultaneously. I felt his lower jaw crumple and my blood mingle with his in a macabre cocktail and had time to wonder if I'd catch an infection.

Then the clock ticked and time returned with a crash of smashing bottles and folding shelves. He went down in a heap, and I was striding towards the door, phone in my good hand as the other dripped blood. A Knight approached between me and the exit, mouth opening to talk. I punched him with my ragged fist and he went down. As I pushed my way through the door into the night, uncaring if I was being chased, I clamped my phone to my ear.

Nobody answered.

*****

I crashed into my office with ears buzzing and roadrunner doing laps around my stomach. I'd already dialled 999 as I charged up the stairs; the claw marks on the door outside were all the reason I needed.

Broken furniture and shredded paper riddled the floor, but it was the slapdash strings of red that slammed my heart against my ribcage and held it in a chokehold. It looked like an expressionist painter had been flinging their brush around - lines smattered the windows, spattered the ceiling and matted the ground. All hell had broken loose in this place and everything was a mess.

The baby was not here. Even beyond my eyes and ears, I felt the lack of a presence I hadn't previously realised was there. Mr Black had the Angrath, but Amy hadn't made it easy.

"She fought!" I whispered to myself, my voice harsh through a closed throat. "She fought you, you fuck!"

There was a faint shuffle from behind my desk and I ran to investigate, torn between desperation to help and terror at what I might find. Amy was sprawled on her back, one foot stuck up on my overturned chair where she'd been hurled across the desk. Her body shuddered, her face was gone, and the whole world was slick with blood.

"Amy!" I roared, slamming to my knees beside her.

In response, a bubble popped in the pool where her features should be. There was a sound like a scream dunked in yoghurt and droplets splashed my face. Still breathing!

I grabbed her shoulder and pulled her onto one side, letting the blood drain from her mouth and nasal cavity. My fingers sank into a rent in her back and I quickly adjusted my grip. Tears rained from my face and mixed with her wounds.

"I'msosorry sosorry Amy. All my fault, so fucking sorry, that motherfucker! He's dead! I'll fucking ... oh god, I'm so fucking sorry!"

She glugged again and mucus spewed from a space that should have been her nose. What remained of her face was more visible now, and I thought I preferred the pool of blood. She tried to open her mouth, but it was already open. Too open. If I didn't do something, she'd be dead from blood loss long before the ambulance got here.

In a daze, I made sure she was balanced to her side and scrambled to my feet, trying to remember where the first aid kit was. I zigzagged round the room like a rubber bullet, bouncing between furniture and walls, my hands scrabbling at drawers and shelves for what I needed. Several breaths later, I stood over Amy's ragged form, an inch-long waterproof plaster gripped between thumb and forefinger, and sobbed listlessly. My brain arced from thought to thought so fast I felt like one of those lightning balls with jumping electricity in them.

Suddenly a clear thought broke through; a snippet of pop wisdom married to something I'd spied in a drawer. I scrambled to the place I'd seen it, frantic with haste, and soon I was back at Amy's side, a small tube of superglue in my shaking hand.

As I gripped the edge of a six-inch cut across her chest and drew the skin together, a resolve hit me. The shaking lessened and I knew I had to do this. If I did nothing, Amy would die. So even if superglue was the stupidest idea since someone decided The Matrix needed two sequels, it couldn't make things any worse. I squeezed some glue roughly along the broken edge of skin and pressed the gaping hole closed.

It held, and that gave me hope. I moved on, trying to decide which wounds to prioritise with a brain that thought triage had something to do with triangles. In one wound on her hip, I heaved and retched as I tied off a hanging tube that was dribbling a steady stream of blood into her intestines. Then I glued her shut. She made noises as I worked and I sniffed back tears, hoping with all my soul I wasn't torturing my only true friend unnecessarily. Within a few minutes, she looked, if not better, at least more human. Her chest still shuddered its way up and down, each breath accompanied by a hiss and more blood.

It was when I turned my attentions to her face that the shakes returned. She was making regular noises now, one hand nudging insistently as if trying to garner my notice. Unsure what was preventing her talking, I gently lifted open her mouth. Her tongue was attached but limp, sliced beneath by the same claw that tore her cheeks. At least her throat was intact, but a deep cut in the side of her neck, running on from her near-unhinged lower jaw, frightened the life out of me. That one needed fixing.

Steeling myself, I gently pulled the skin together with my fingers, and then applied a line of glue, holding the result in place. It wasn't until I moved my hands that I realised what my shaking fingers had done. As I pulled away, the side of Amy's face came with me. My hand, glued to the skin of her neck, peeled away her cheek, exposing gums and teeth. This time she managed a groan of distress and I choked back the vomit that rose on my palate. In desperation, I smoothed the skin back and held it with my other hand as I tore my stuck one free.

She jerked in place, moaning urgently, and I backed off in horror. Her head wobbled as it turned in my direction. Free from the pooled blood, all I could think was that she looked like an open doner kebab with way too much chilli sauce. One eye fixed on me from a mess of flesh and gristle.

"Ngo," she said. "Ngo, ake! Ogeesh, agheshk oo. Ngo!"

It was then I heard the sirens, beckoned by my panicked phone call, and understood what she was saying. Go, Mike! Police arrest you. Go!

"I can't. I won't!" I could heard my tone, pleading as though she controlled me. Deep down, I knew she was right, but I needed her to make that decision. She slumped back, apparently lacking the energy to talk any more, but that eye pinned me with an eagle's clarity.

I wanted my brain to shut down, my instincts to rule my reactions, but they were as much use as slate window panes right now. The sirens were getting louder and my tears were falling heavier. Amy's eye just stared, devoid of expression without a face to give it context, but I knew what she was saying. I could be a coward or a bastard, and I wanted neither option.

It was a memory that saved me, a memory of that case in the disused warehouse, the first time I'd encountered one of the demons' doors. I'd been beckoned by a baby's cry, my sense of bravery or stupidity drawing me into a nightmare of horror and madness. That baby had been beyond help, half formed into a grotesque approximation of life, and I'd broken its little head with my gun butt to end its suffering. Today, as my faithful Amy lay shredded and ruined upon the floor, there was another baby, perhaps not beyond my help. The coward begged me to stay and take whatever was thrown at me, to give up and let grief and fear rule my actions.

But the bastard knew I had to leave.

The gypsy woman had warned me I'd have to step into darkness before this case was out, and only now did I understand just how far that step would take me.

I met Amy's monocular gaze as my tears came to a halt.

"I won't let you down," whispered my mouth.

Then I turned and left her in a heap on the floor, so much clutter amongst the wreckage of my office, and wondered what the hell I was going to do.