Dale L. Sproule

Excerpt from "Fourth Person Singular"
by Dale L. Sproule
from Northern Frights 2 - 1994 from Mosaic Press

Every night since I was seven years old he's swooped down at me out of the darkness of sleep: a pale, skeletal boy with thin arms thrust out like wings, eyes like white domes in black craters, mouth open as he screams acceleration.

His name is Wren.

It's been over 30 years and the images haven't even begun to fade. Maybe writing it down will help exorcise my ghosts.

"So, where're we going?"

"Friend of mine has an apartment near here."

"Yeah?"

"No. But if I told you I was gonna take you under the bridge, you probably wouldn't come."

"I always come," she murmured. "Sometimes two or three times, depending how long you last."

I stopped and stared into those piercing eyes. I preferred my victims to be almost dead. But it was no time to get picky. I might never get another chance. And at that moment, I desperately wanted another chance.

"I don't even know your name yet," I said.

"Does that bother you?" She sounded surprised.

"I'm...Brandon," I volunteered.

We paused in front of the big windows that looked out to the street. It was pouring outside.

"I'm Jaynie," she shouted too loudly as the door closed behind us, replacing the pounding grunge of the dancehall with the splatter of hard, icy rain.

"Are you for real?" I asked.

"Do you believe in the tooth fairy?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Just wondering."

The hall was less than six blocks from the Barrow, but we didn't get far past the first intersection when I saw Horsefly and Catbreath come steaming around the corner toward us.

They'd come to steal the husk I'd found, knowing that the Barrow-King didn't give a fuck who brought in the bodies. Eighty years ago, my old friend Catbreath had joined up with Alimatheon's Ring-wearers, Horsefly and Toadwart, and started stealing bodies from other Imps on the way to the Barrow. He was no longer a friend.

"C'mere," I whispered, pulling Jaynie around the corner into a narrow alleyway. The facades of the buildings in Old Town had been dolled up for tourists, but the back walls of the brick and stone buildings glistened blackly with filth. The smell of garbage was strong even in the cleansing rain. Wordlessly, I hustled her deeper into the darkness. She resisted, but I chugged on, finally dragging her into the archway behind Plover's Restaurant.

"What's your problem?" She shouted.

"I didn't want to run into those dudes who were coming toward us."

"The blind ones?"

"What?"

"If they didn't see us come in here, they must be blind."

"They were under a streetlight. We weren't. Maybe they didn't see us."

"You really think so, Brandon?"

I nodded.

As though my hands were suddenly coated in grease, she pulled effortlessly away from me and danced several steps into the middle of the alley. "Then I'd better make sure they don't miss out on the fun."

"No wait..." I whispered, feeling puzzled and desperate all at once. "What the fuck you doing?"

"In here!" she shouted, clearly audible over the splattering rainfall and the hiss of passing cars. She threw off my leather jacket and unravelled the lacy fabric of her dress with the grace and speed of a rhythmic gymnast. Then, she swept her arms out in the grand gesture of a magician unveiling a surprise.

With a sound that was a cross between the ringing of bells and the clashing of sheet metal, Jaynie's great metal wings rose up, slicing through the remaining cloth, which fell away from her in tatters. A blade touched the sodden sleeve of my shirt and a thin line of blood became visible. I pulled apart the clean edges of fabric to find a deep incision in the flesh of my arm. Instead of pain, my flesh felt cold and numb. My attention shifted jaggedly upward, observing Catbreath and Horsefly rounding the corner at a run, Jaynie's wings flashing strobe- like in the reflected yellow and red of nearby neons and streetlights and blood spraying in all directions -- painting the brick walls with the graffiti of death.

"Sorry you had to find out this way," she said, turning back toward me.

My mouth went dry and I tried not to think about that eyeflash of mutilation I had just witnessed, tried not to let panic destroy my concentration as I dug through my memory for some sort of spell to either ward Jaynie off or get me the hell outta there. Unable to squirm deeper into the corner, I muttered, "Where Alimatheon's magic walks..."

"No wait!" Jaynie shouted.

"...motion stops like an unwound clock," I threw my hands into the air. "Now stop!" Feeling the spell settle around me, I scampered up the alley like a roach running from the light, not glancing back until I reached the sidewalk.

Jaynie was frozen like a statue. I gaped like a moron. That was the most significant magic I'd loosed in over at least eighty years. And it had worked!

The soles of my shoes slid in a puddle of blood. The last thing I saw before I turned the corner and ran was Catbreath's headless, limbless torso. With the ribcage collapsed, the corpse was almost unrecognizable. Having no idea how long the spell would bind her, I hoped to be several blocks away before Jaynie snapped out of her trance. But before I reached Government Street, I was sliding down a wall onto the sidewalk, sucking in desperate whooping breaths between fits of phlegmy coughing. AIDS was such a drag.