Ringed to follow. One stooped to lap at the fresh blood on the snowy cobbles, tongue slurping lizard-like the primal sustenance that had once nourished her son. Most of them followed her and closed in on her tortured body.
Twenty metres away, she exhausted the surge of power her love had given her and fell to the stone. Swearing loudly, Michelle defied the limitations of her broken body and rose again. She threw the rubbery flash-drive into the darkness where her new-born son lay before running for ten metres, only to fall to the cobbles one last time. She lifted her face from the ancient stones and stole a look into the dark doorway where she’d laid her baby son. Watching Padre Jock slip form the shadows, her child cradled gently but firmly in his arms, she yelled to him, “Joseph MacLeod. My Joseph.”
Jock acknowledged her with a nod as twenty of The Ringed closed in around her and tooth and nail tore the sound of her son’s name from her throat.
Bracha
Part One
Chapter 1
Edinburgh
Hogmanay
2014
11:50 pm
“I’m not interested, Jimmy. You fire in.”
He throws me a smile that’s not really a smile at all. It’s laced with sarcasm and judgement. Letting his raised eyebrows mock me for a few seconds, he finally turns his attention to the young lass.
“I will,” he says, leering at her legs.
Leaving our booth, Lieutenant James Kelly staggers on strong but wobbly legs across the carpet to unload his spiel on the unsuspecting girl in the red dress, completely oblivious to the wedding ring on her finger or the husband in the toilets. Jim’s had a few drinks, but he’s entitled. Besides, I’m designated babysitter tonight, subsequently limited to two drinks.
Harry, who’s in better shape but approaching tipsy, reaches across the table and drops a note.
“Fifty quid he earns himself a generous kick in the testicles.”
“Fuck off, Spike,” I tell him. He snatches the strangely-coloured note back.
“Right. For fuck sake.”
Despite myself I laugh. I always do. It’s his voice. It always makes me laugh when he swears using that clipped, so very proper accent of his. So at odds with who and what he actually is.
I throw a twenty of my own on top of his purple twenty, both bearing his grandmother’s likeness, and give him my thickest Lanarkshire accent.
“Right then, fanny-baws. Twenty sheets it is.”
He laughs loudly at me.
“Nice,” he says. “Don’t often let the…” He pauses for a few seconds, searching for the phrase. “Schemey. You don’t often let your schemey origins show, Cameron.” He laughs at his own use of the colloquialism.
“Aye, well. You’re being an especially excellent example of your kith and kin tonight, Harry,” I tell him. I hardly ever call him by name. All the lads call him Spike. Always have.
The ever-so-posh demeanour and bumbling, upper-class moron act he uses, which we call his Bruce Wayne persona, couldn’t be further from the man I’ve known for a third of my life. The soldier, the professional killer, the assassin who sits opposite me is not the man his public buys into. The jovial, ruddy-faced, red-haired buffoon he plays for the public and the media. Captain Wales, Apache-pilot. An officer and the poshest of gentlemen. This image carefully crafted and maintained by the ministry, so often useful as a mask and diversion, betrays not a sliver of who Spike really is.
Jim Kelly and I have been his shadows since Sandhurst. Employed to protect a killing machine. The thought is laughably ironic, as though Spike had ever feared anything or anyone. We trained and bled and laughed and drank and killed alongside him during his rigorous training in the Army Air Corps and then Special Division and on every Black-Ops mission since.
Captain Wales, according to official records, completed two heroic tours in Afghanistan based at Camp Bastion, Helmand province. His presence there was kept secret for the months of his
Twenty metres away, she exhausted the surge of power her love had given her and fell to the stone. Swearing loudly, Michelle defied the limitations of her broken body and rose again. She threw the rubbery flash-drive into the darkness where her new-born son lay before running for ten metres, only to fall to the cobbles one last time. She lifted her face from the ancient stones and stole a look into the dark doorway where she’d laid her baby son. Watching Padre Jock slip form the shadows, her child cradled gently but firmly in his arms, she yelled to him, “Joseph MacLeod. My Joseph.”
Jock acknowledged her with a nod as twenty of The Ringed closed in around her and tooth and nail tore the sound of her son’s name from her throat.
Bracha
Part One
Chapter 1
Edinburgh
Hogmanay
2014
11:50 pm
“I’m not interested, Jimmy. You fire in.”
He throws me a smile that’s not really a smile at all. It’s laced with sarcasm and judgement. Letting his raised eyebrows mock me for a few seconds, he finally turns his attention to the young lass.
“I will,” he says, leering at her legs.
Leaving our booth, Lieutenant James Kelly staggers on strong but wobbly legs across the carpet to unload his spiel on the unsuspecting girl in the red dress, completely oblivious to the wedding ring on her finger or the husband in the toilets. Jim’s had a few drinks, but he’s entitled. Besides, I’m designated babysitter tonight, subsequently limited to two drinks.
Harry, who’s in better shape but approaching tipsy, reaches across the table and drops a note.
“Fifty quid he earns himself a generous kick in the testicles.”
“Fuck off, Spike,” I tell him. He snatches the strangely-coloured note back.
“Right. For fuck sake.”
Despite myself I laugh. I always do. It’s his voice. It always makes me laugh when he swears using that clipped, so very proper accent of his. So at odds with who and what he actually is.
I throw a twenty of my own on top of his purple twenty, both bearing his grandmother’s likeness, and give him my thickest Lanarkshire accent.
“Right then, fanny-baws. Twenty sheets it is.”
He laughs loudly at me.
“Nice,” he says. “Don’t often let the…” He pauses for a few seconds, searching for the phrase. “Schemey. You don’t often let your schemey origins show, Cameron.” He laughs at his own use of the colloquialism.
“Aye, well. You’re being an especially excellent example of your kith and kin tonight, Harry,” I tell him. I hardly ever call him by name. All the lads call him Spike. Always have.
The ever-so-posh demeanour and bumbling, upper-class moron act he uses, which we call his Bruce Wayne persona, couldn’t be further from the man I’ve known for a third of my life. The soldier, the professional killer, the assassin who sits opposite me is not the man his public buys into. The jovial, ruddy-faced, red-haired buffoon he plays for the public and the media. Captain Wales, Apache-pilot. An officer and the poshest of gentlemen. This image carefully crafted and maintained by the ministry, so often useful as a mask and diversion, betrays not a sliver of who Spike really is.
Jim Kelly and I have been his shadows since Sandhurst. Employed to protect a killing machine. The thought is laughably ironic, as though Spike had ever feared anything or anyone. We trained and bled and laughed and drank and killed alongside him during his rigorous training in the Army Air Corps and then Special Division and on every Black-Ops mission since.
Captain Wales, according to official records, completed two heroic tours in Afghanistan based at Camp Bastion, Helmand province. His presence there was kept secret for the months of his