A New Pair of Bloody Wings
By Adrienne Gordon
Copyright 2011Adrienne Gordon
“What does it mean?” screamed Anna, “why does it hurt so much?”
Her mother calmly knelt down beside Anna, and smoothed her long brown hair. “Just give it some time. I promise it’ll be alright.”
“What do you mean?” Anna felt like her insides were exploding in a series of percussive bursts. She was having trouble forming thoughts, and just wanted it to all be over, one way or another. “Make it stop, please,” she moaned, crying. “Just make it stop.”
Her mother’s face suddenly lost all its compassion, and drew closed, as if turning to stone. Anna wasn’t used to her mother’s compassion, but distant firmness was loathingly familiar. “Be quiet, and stop your moaning! You are about to Ascend, my sweet dear; remember this moment for the rest of your life! Remember your birthright!”
Anna screamed as bones began to break through her skin, out of her shoulder-blades. She doubled over as they spontaneously grew, as if two skeletal fingers extended far out of her shoulders. She couldn’t help but vomit, as the resources of her thin body were called upon to serve as the building blocks for what soon became two great skeletal wings. As they flexed up into the air, she lost her bowels, utterly terrified as to what was happening. She was thankful when her mother brought a great crystal vase down on her head, bringing sweet oblivion.
2
“Come on and move!”
Anna felt a thick coat was tightly wound around her body but brought little warmth. She felt utterly exhausted and chilled, even though it was early fall and people around her wore shorts and thin shirts. For an instant she hoped the wings were just a dream, but she could feel the cold wet bones pressed tightly against her flesh.
“What am I?”
“Not now, dear. We need to get out of the city.”
Anna’s head swooned as they passed by a large silver truck selling Jamaican food. The smell of jerk chicken was utterly irresistible.
“I need to eat.”
“Yes you do, but you also need to live.”
Anna’s lip trembled, frustrated as usual with her mother’s emotional distance. “Why can’t we go in our car?”
“Because people know me in that car,” answered Hélène patronizingly, like she always did when Anna asked an obvious or stupid question. “It isn’t safe.”
Anna was dragged across Market Street, wincing at the car horns berating their slow progress. It was mid-afternoon, and traffic was building again in front of 30th Street Station.
“What about . . . what about dad?”
“What about him?”
“Why can’t he be with us?”
“He’s not one of us,” said Hélène angrily, holding open one of the heavy, brass doors so Anna might go in. “I was only with him to make sure I had you. Now, he’s useless.”
“But he’s dad!” shouted Anna, pushing her mother away to awkwardly stand on the marble floor.
Hélène purposefully let Anna be, and for a moment Anna felt utterly alone. The people dragging wheeled luggage behind them stopped to stare at her; the vendors all paused in dispensing their fare to ogle her. They felt dirty to her now in a way they never felt before, and Anna wanted to curse them all for fouling her with their gaze.
Hélène came back to Anna’s side. “Do you feel it now, how things have changed?” She led Anna down through the line of food vendors. “You are more than them now, yet they can still do you harm.”
Anna groggily pawed at the glass counters covering piping hot pans of food. The bones that extended from her body still seemed to be growing, and she felt her flesh was shriveling as fluid and blood were drawn to build them.
“Can I help you two?” asked a policeman standing in their way.
“No, thank you,” said Hélène, steadying Anna. “We’re just getting our car.”
He was tall and thin, with a blank expression set into a face of stone. “Can I see some identification?”
Anna watched as Hélène whipped out her wallet from her purse. The officer’s head bent to look at it, but his eyes kept darting back to Anna.
“And her ID?”
“She’s my daughter,” spat Hélène, using the anger that allowed her to pass through life unobstructed yet again. “Now can we go?”
“No,” answered the officer, unperturbed. “We’re on a heightened terror alert. Follow me.”
He motioned them forward, and Hélène had no choice but to comply. Anna’s eyes were drawn to this officer, as his face seemed to twist in the dim halogen lights.
“Down to the left and through that door.”
“Anna, I can’t run with you,” she whispered as they came close to the door. “So this might be it. Here are the keys. They’re to a blue Passat in the second level. Find it, and head west if we get separated.”
“What?” asked Anna groggily.
“Come on,” pressed the officer, as he led the door for them. “Go inside, and down that hall.”
Slowly, Hélène led Anna down the hall. The pain suddenly wasn’t as great, and Anna could even feel some strength return. When she looked up at her mother, she saw her eyes were afire with vengeance and death.
“We are Uriah, my daughter, and this is what we do.”
Anna was pushed back against the wall by an unseen force, as her mother threw off her coat. The officer grinned sickly, with long sharp teeth growing out above his lips.
“So close to getting away,” he said with a reptilian hiss.”But we are so hungry.”
“And I am so angry!”
Anna was again thrown back by the percussive force of two mighty wings extending from Hélène’s shoulders. They each were the length of a man, thick with red and black plumage that looked as if they had seen battle many times. Instinctively, Anna wanted to extend her own wings.
“No, my love, it’s not time yet,” said Hélène, as she and the officer circled each other. “This is the time to learn, so one day you may know how to fight!”
Hélène leapt up in the air, bringing her wings down on the officer. A bluish crackle of energy extended from their tips, surrounding his head. He screamed in pain as black smoke issued from his head, but managed to push her away.
“Been long time since a good fight,” he hissed, as his face began to change. “Even longer since I’ve eaten!”
His mouth grew in size to accommodate even more sharp teeth, His eyes and nose shrunk, to the point that they seemed as four black beads set in a pale white shark-like face. His fists closed, and his fingers turned white and bony, quickly turning into teeth. His arms now led to two vicious mouths, opening and closing autonomically, dripping a fluid that burned when it hit the ground.
“Kneel, and I’ll make it quick.”
“Run, and I’ll let you live.”
Anna watched as they threw themselves at each other. Hélène was proud yet fierce, her back unbending as the officer sought to lock one of his mouths on her. She brought her wings together creating a brilliant blue orb of energy that blinded, and threw it at the creature. The officer burned and writhed in pain, but as Hélène opened her wings to recharge, he leapt at her, burying his head in her chest.
“Mother!”
Hélène tossed and turned, trying to throw him off, but he brought his mouth-fists onto her arms, keeping them close. He bit savagely into her torso, and for the first time Anna heard her mother cry in pain.
“No!” screamed Anna, as she tried to run towards her. “Someone help!”
“Just run, Anna,” said Hélène as she fell to the ground, her wings becoming bloodied. “Run and live!”
Anna turned away, her ears filled with the sound
of ripping flesh and breaking bone. She could take it no longer; she ran out the door, and back out into the station.
3
Darkness did little to calm Anna; the garage was a leviathan labyrinth, and every car looked like a blue Passat. The thought of her mother being eaten did little to focus her gaze.
She hid behind the massive concrete pillars whenever she heard someone approach. The little strength she felt earlier faded as she moved from car to car, searching for the key that would let her escape.
Waiting in terror behind a pillar that smelled of urine, she remembered her family’s trips to Vermont. While her mother and father would huddle in a cabin in front of a fire, she would go out, past the trees, to a wide field where only the sky and the treeline could be seen. She would stand out in that white field surrounded by snow, and know she belonged.
My father used to laugh at me when I came back, calling me a ‘snow queen,’ but mother would flash me a knowing look.
As she hid from a boisterously loud couple, a trashcan nearby drew her attention. She could smell pizza