The-Inkling

“You know who I am.” Richter said with a bloody smile, and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Good. That’ll make this so much easier.” The angel laughed in his face, its hands twisting against the electrical cables Richter had used to bind it to the chair. “You think I’m afraid of you?” It asked him in a voice like dark honey. “Oh please. You’re a rat. A shadow-crawler. A little dead thing. You aren’t capable of harming the likes of me.” “Am I not?” In a blur of movement Richter crossed the room, and pressed the bright blade of his straight razor to the corner of the angel’s blackened eye. “You look plenty harmed to me.” He said with a sneer, then let the razor drop back down to his side. A small line of blood beaded on the angel’s cheek. “Flesh.” The angel spat. “It means nothing.” “Uh huh. That’s what the last one said.” Richter drawled, tugging at the slender silver chain his neck to reveal the key dangling at the end. Such a small thing, heavy and roughly hewn

“What were they digging for out here anyway?” Xenia asked, kicking a clump of muddy soil into the pit below. They’d locked the malfunctioning constructs back in their box, while Farrow went back to the refectory to comb over the site logs. But so far no dice. Reznik could still hear their voices chanting in the back of his mind, like a litany, or some dark promise. This isn’t my body, this isn’t my body, this isn’t my— “Fucked if I know.” Reznik said, craning his neck to try and see whatever was at the bottom of the hole. When he looked up, Xenia was still staring at him, with that little tell-tale crease between her brows that always meant trouble. “Seriously, Xenia! I don’t know shit. Do you honestly think that corporate would tell me anything? I’m just the hired gun. Dumb muscle. Remember?” He said, lifting his rifle to drive home the point. Xenia chewed it over for a minute, then shrugged, breaking their eye-lock. “Guess not.” She said at last, and Reznik had to physically bite

Every day the same thing, back and forth from camp in a high sided truck; sunup to sunset in the orchard, backs breaking as they plucked the tiny apples from the withered boughs. They worked while the soldiers walked the perimeter, watching the forest, keeping them safe from the intruders. “What if there’s nothing out there anymore?” Jordie would ask. “What if there is?” Emily would ask in turn. Months went by, and still everything remained calm. Emily started feeling almost safe. “They could be lying to us. Just saying!” Jordie said, catching her expression. “We do all the work, while they walk around and stare off into space.” “Get all the good rations, too.” He grumbled. “There’s nothing left of the world, Jordie. Just us. I’d rather pick apples than spend all day staring into the shadows.” They came for them on the road. Emily should have known it was too good to last. The intruders never left, and there’d be no going back to the way things were before. Soldiers were

The rain was relentless, heavy sheets of water sweeping across the city in a grey deluge that showed no sign of letting up. The gutters and storm drains had long since overflowed, broken streams of water pouring from every rooftop, and waterspout onto the cobbled streets below. Lightning broke the sky in jagged arcs, thunder rattling the glass in the windows before subsiding with a low animal growl. In older parts of the city where the ground had subsided pedestrians had to wade through ankle-deep water, their black umbrellas swooping across the street like a murmuration of swallows as people ran for shelter on higher ground. Amrita waited beneath the overhang of an old alms-house, water dripping from the brim of her black hat as her fingers nervously turned the small object in her waistcoat pocket; over and over, round and round, as she waited and watched. If she looked north Amrita could just make out the bulk of the Telegraph Hub, squatting above the city like some bloated

Casey crouched in the darkness, barely even daring to breathe, and watched as the shape beyond the curtain shifted. It was definitely human, or human-like at least. Tall, and bipedal, with hunched shoulders, and long dangling arms hanging at its side. She’d only noticed it because the outside light had cast its shadow onto the curtains. If not for that she wouldn’t have seen at all. Would have walked right past without realising there was a monster in her room. She could have screamed or run for help, but as long as the monster was still she didn’t want to startle it. So she just hovered there, paralysed by fear, too terrified to turn away. Then her mother walked in and flicked on the light. “What on earth are you doing—“ Her mother began asking, as Casey simultaneously screamed and ran for the doorway. Despite the commotion the monster did not come out from behind the curtains, and now safely within the circle of her mothers arms, Casey explained what was going on. “Right

A cedar box, blue satin, and the waxy press of lillies against his carefully folded hands. A spider skitters along his lifeless arm, and he wishes he could feel it, could move, could open his mouth to scream. The lid of the coffin is nailed shut; the last light he will ever see, and he is lowered down six feet. I’m still here, he begs the darkness as they throw soil onto his grave. Aware, caged, like a wounded animal his mind circles the confines of its prison. Too late, he understands that death is just the beginning of eternity.

“We can’t just leave them to die.” Moira said softly, and somehow, that was enough to shut the riverboat Captains up and stop them arguing. Some of them even had the decency to look guilty. At her side, she felt Anais reach up and take her hand, giving her palm a gentle squeeze. “We don’t know what’s out there.” Atticus said, raking his hands through his hair as he paced the deck. “It could be a trap. And for all we know whoever is out there is probably already dead.” “I won’t risk my crew, or the people on this flotilla for some misguided rescue mission.” He said, with an air of finality. “I’m sorry Moira.” Moira wasn’t a Captain, she had no boat, no experience, no leg to stand on really when it came to making a decision on behalf of the little band of refugees on the flotilla. She was just a makeshift medic, and a makeshift mother to Anais, and the other orphans — a makeshift lot of things really. But she knew if she didn’t take a stand on this she’d never be able to live with

“Are you quite finished?” Sticky with sweat, Slade patted down the last of the soil and leaned on his shovel, contemplating the man buried neck-deep in the ground. “Scared, Risteard?” Slade asked. “Thought you’d have grown comfortable with the notion of death after all these years doling it out.” “If you weren’t such a worthless husk you’d dig me out of here and fight me like a man.” Risteard sneered, neck muscles cording as he struggled to against the confines of his earthy prison. But the earth wouldn’t budge. “See now, that’s tempting and all, but I ain’t been a man in a long time, Risteard. And when it comes down to it, well, neither have you…” If he was honest, he was getting a kick out of watching Risteard struggle. He’d always been so cool, so calm, so collected, but now here he was, down in the dirt just like the rest of them. It was enough to make dead man’s heart swell with joy. “You slimy upstart.” Risteard spat. “You worm. Have you forgotten who I am? I’m going to

He was born under a dark star, with nothing to his name but a mother’s tangled love. “Kill it.” The King whispered, unable to look upon his son. But the Queen begged for mercy. And so instead they took him, and hid him in a cage without walls. Wordless, voiceless, he wept inside his lonely prison. But all they heard outside the labyrinth were the roars of a monster. “Death would have been better.” Whack, went the old man’s stick. “Never say such things! As long as there’s life, there’s hope. So stop being bull-headed and learn.” “Should’ve killed you like the others.” He grumbled, scrawling another childish letter with hands not made for human words. “Clumsy. Stupid!” He roared, flinging the precious chalk to the floor. “Try again,” the old man said. “We’re all clumsy at first.” When the old man died he was alone again, but for the heroes they sent into his prison to rend, and to kill. By the time Theseus came, he’d had enough of living. Broken, bleeding, left for

The city was rank with the stench of ozone and ashes. Burning embers still falling from the sky like dark snow as Skadi stalked towards the edge of the rooftop. Brushing a bit of ash from the shoulder of her leather jacket, Skadi unslung the broadsword from her back and levelled it at Asa’s pretty neck. It was just the two of them now. Everyone else had fallen behind, trapped by Asa’s seidr in the warren of office blocks below. The witch laughed, even as she struggled to maintain her tenuous grip on the rooftop. She‘d eluded capture for so long, but now it looked like a simple misplaced step was going to be her downfall. The woman had nine lives, but a fall from a skyscraper would kill even the likes of her. “What are you going to do, veslingr? Stab me?” Asa asked, eyes rolling towards the yawing nothingness below. ”Stop wasting both our time, and help me up. We both know you can’t kill me, not now you have that shiny badge on your hip. You’re a Detective. You have to play by