A Day Of Faces Read Free Page B

back. As he rises and leaps towards me I grab a pitchfork from the tool shelf and swing it around in front. He impales himself and staggers back, then I pick up a shovel and being it down on his head. I tie him up before he comes to and drag his sorry ass down to the police station. Kicking open the front door, I slide him across the polished floor, as the cops and other perps turn to look in astonishment. I stand in the doorway, silhouetted against the streetlights. It’s pretty sweet.
    I ignore the blood-washed floor and move quietly closer, aware of my own breathing and my beating heart. I can see his chest rising and falling, his breath sporadic. He might be dying. I pick up a gardening fork from the workbench, just in case, and lean in close, the fork held up in front of me as I peer at his face. His eyes suddenly snap open and and arm rushes out, seizing my wrist in a firm grip. He looks at the fork, then back at me, and whispers, “you have nothing to fear from me.” I remove his tattered shirt and tend to the wound, delicately removing the remains of the bullet. He grimaces but doesn’t cry out. “I owe you,” he says, voice hoarse but powerful. I close my eyes and lean in.
    Nope. That didn’t happen either. Tempting, though.
    “Hey!” I keep my voice down, not wanting to wake up the neighbourhood. He doesn’t stir. I shrug, then kick his leg, hard. “Hey, dead guy! You’re bleeding on my floor.”
    That got him moving. He groaned, and turned towards me, bleary-eyed. “Fuck,” he said.
    “Are your wings absorbent?” I asked. “Will they mop up all this shit?”
    He tried to sit up, making the mistake of putting weight on his injured wing. He collapsed back to the floor with a thud and a moan. Glancing over at his wound with a wince he asked “Did I get shot?”
    I nodded. “And guess what’s weird, right? I saw it happen. A couple miles away. And now you’re right here in my garden. What the hell?”
    “Weirder things have happened to me lately,” he said, grunting. With my eyes adjusted properly to the dark I could just about make out his face, although the dirt and blood didn’t make that any easier. The wings were clear testament to his birth year, but I didn’t recognise him from any particular phase. January wings tended to be more feathered, while April wings were gliders rather than free-flight. Each day was unique, so it wasn’t like I would know them all, but the annual pattern tended to develop in a predictable manner - much like me and Rachel both being squamata but differing massively in our genotype due to our birth date.
    Not recognising him wasn’t unexpected, given that wings tended to keep to themselves. They made their buildings tall and without ground floor doors for a reason. Nevertheless, there was something a little off about this guy, something just out of reach.
    “I’m thinking you don’t want me to call an ambulance,” I said.
    He snorted. “That’d be a bad idea.” He moved into a seated position, more carefully this time, avoiding the damaged wing. Part of the wing hung loose, the frame shattered and snapped. “You should probably go,” he said, looking me dead in the eyes. “The less you’re involved the better, for you.”
    “Yeah, I’ll just pop back to bed, then.”
    After a moment he smiled, then shrugged, then regretted the shrug. “Alright, then,” he muttered, “your funeral. You got something I can bite?”
    All I could think of was smut.
    “I mean like a small piece of wood. Or the handle from one of those gardening tools. Yeah, pass it over.”
    I picked up a trowel from the workbench and handed it over, reaching out as far as I could and half-flinging it at him. I wasn’t getting too close. The police don’t send ten cops into a packed venue without some kind of good reason.
    Holding the trowel, he looked at the damaged wing, then glanced up at me. “This is going to give you nightmares,” he said, putting the handle width-ways into