St. Michael's Day

“What are you waiting for?”

The idea occurred to Kala that the weight of a gun changes depending on what, or who, you are pointing it at. On the ranges as a cadet pistols, rifles, shotguns had all felt light. Tools of the trade, things to be cleaned and maintained, serviced like the photocopier in the office. They did exactly what he needed them to do. Kala was considered a talented marksman, but to him, putting a tight group of holes in a paper target was no more important than getting the punctuation right in the final draft of a report. Less important, no contest. He had less reverence for his sidearm than he had for his stapler. His stapler had been key to finishing a few reports, and a few of his reports had finished a few criminal careers. Maybe it was his indifference to the more explosive elements of his work that had caused Kala to be singled out.   

Already today the gun he held had put three full stops into Crow’s Eye. A rapid-fire ellipsis that left nothing unsaid. The gun had felt as light as they all had on the range. It was not his familiar department sidearm. It was a long time since he’d had any access to official equipment or contact with anyone from the department. Kala had only a name; Maitland, to be given to the receptionist at an estate agent’s office on Eziekiel Street if he needed to get a message out. He also had the address of a safe house; Flat 2B Jagger Street, an address which he had been assured only undercovers were given. That was all. Everything else in his life came to him courtesy of The Dragon. The car, the flat, the drugs he had pretended to take for the first few months, until pretending became too risky. Everything was provided in exchange for loyalty.

Crow’s Eye had pushed the drugs on him. Simple peer pressure, playground stuff. It had worked. Kala was astonished by how easily the disciplined cadet had been lost, the junior officer’s resolve removed with the uniform. Within weeks of the staged murder that brought him to the attention of Crow’s Eye he had been pulled deeper into a world where it was always four in the morning and the only limit was how much you could take. He put the spiralling binges and alibi-free blackouts between his new self and his old life, wearing his burgeoning addiction as camouflage. One of the crew, as wild as the rest, but Crow’s Eye knew what he was doing. Exhaustion and paranoia were fatal traps to a man already living in the cloven world of duty-induced psychosis.

Crow’s Eye was a seasoned fiend. He’d worked for The Dragon since he appeared on the scene and had spent most of those years living in a liminal space hacked out of the foundations of the straight world. Crow’s Eye was named for his ability to see everything, taking it all in with an eight-ball stare from his place in a gutter that ran under The Dragon’s wing. Always sweating, tongue jammed between his teeth, he teased at Kala’s fraying edges with gold-ringed fingers.

Kala felt the first threads unravelling when he realised that he didn’t cook anymore. He hadn’t held fresh food in his hands for months. Hadn’t prepared even the simplest of snacks. He didn’t shop anymore either. He ate in a restaurant, The Dragon’s restaurant, once a day, at a time of The Dragon’s choosing, usually after midnight. He didn’t even order for himself. Food, drinks, drugs, sex, everything was brought to him. Everything except sleep and light. In a world with no day to give night any meaning, no right to make wrong matter, Kala needed to remind himself that he was not really a murderer, but couldn’t. His shattered brain needed to think that he was.  

“What are you waiting for? Don’t you want to become The Dragon?”

Kala had been to the estate agent’s office on Eziekiel Street. He knew he had because he could remember the sun. The first time in weeks he had been out in the sun and he had hidden his eyes behind shades and hair that had grown long. He’d searched for a reference point to measure the time since his last shower. It was at the flat. It was dark. He was high. He focussed on getting his message to Maitland. He’d had no choice but to go in daylight, office hours, in person. He’d stopped dead on the street outside when he thought he’d seen Crow’s Eye in the office, only to break the spell by raising a hand to his aching head and watch his lean reflection do the same. In the office he’d spoken to a middle-aged woman at the reception desk. He was jealous of her age but too tired to want to reach it. He marvelled at her solidity and wanted to be her grey husband. She’d looked at him like he was nothing she hadn’t seen before and didn’t comment when he threw his shades down on the counter, scraped his hair back and spent a long second giving her a pin-prick stare in return. He needed to be seen. He scanned the room’s corners for cameras and bowed to a small black lens, a little crow’s eye spying on the scene. He left his message for Maitland; He wanted to move in. He was ready to pay the asking price.

“The New Dragon will have total control, especially without the Crow on his shoulder. Don’t you want control?”

He’d walked out of the office and gone to a nearby supermarket where he bought a bag of apples and a cheap set of hair clippers. Back at his flat he rescued the cadet from the tide of seaweed hair. The clippers took bites from his four-day beard as he took bites from an acid green apple. The gushing shower rolled steam onto the mirror and hid the young policeman again. Good, he should hide. Crow’s Eye would be watching. The mirror was his childhood bedroom window now, fogged up and ready for a finger’s squeaked message, but Kala had nothing to write. This career would not be ended by writing. There was only a short future of action and clarity. Black hair was scribbled all over the sink. When he noticed some of it had gotten onto his apple he wept like a child at the corrupted fruit.

When he walked into the restaurant he couldn’t have looked more like police if he’d had his badge tattooed onto his face, instead of the ace of spades that he’d woken up with after one of his nights out with Crow’s Eye. His newly cropped hair and clean-shaven face, the tailored suit gone, cargo pants and a polo shirt, holster at his hip.

They were eating breakfast. At least, Crow’s Eye was. He sat behind a plate of bacon and eggs, a bowl of fresh fruit and steaming coffee. The Dragon was at his elbow, sweat beaded and creased like a wet plastic bag. Wasted.

“I don’t like your new look.” Crow’s Eye peered at Kala over his shades, sea-black eyes darker than the lenses. The Dragon breathed heavily through his nose, forcing the new situation into focus. He looked straight into Kala’s eyes and placed both of his hands on the table in front of him. Fingers splayed in a séance for his future self. Crow’s Eye still held his silver knife and loaded fork. Kala remembered the night of the tattoo. Smoke had burned his lungs and made his mind smoulder before the pills that turned everything into its own future shadow. Later a needle had turned the ceiling into an ocean of milk and Kala had seen Hindu creation, The Dragon everywhere at once, wreathed in serpentine coils, a single page in an infinite flick book. Crow’s Eye had done his job, planting the idea of The Dragon into Kala’s mind, lubricated by hedonism, fixed by fear. He’d added to the fear that night by snatching a fine glass bauble from a table decoration – was it Christmas? Had a year passed? – and forcing it into the mouth of a junior member of the group. He’d made the man bite down on it, the sharp pop creating a thousand irregular razors in his mouth. Crow’s Eye had worn the same sneer that was creeping onto his tightening features now. Kala saw the knife and fork steady in his tightening grip. People often improve their grip on things before putting them down. The Dragon closed his eyes and breathed out through his mouth. Kala had heard Crow’s Eye’s sawing laugh as fine green glass in a porridge of blood and saliva had drooled to the table. He saw the light catch the bauble shards, heard the laughter and then the clatter of a knife and fork hitting a plate. The triplet pop of Kala’s gun had ended Crow’s Eye’s fun before he had time to draw the ridiculous gold-plated thing he wore so heavily inside his Armani jacket.

The Dragon opened his eyes. He picked up Crow’s Eye’s coffee and gulped at it, steaming liquid spilling over his chin. He slammed the cup down on the table and rolled forward to hunch over it, looking at Crow’s Eye, who tried to swallow one last astonished, bubbling breath before he slid off his chair to await a chalk outline. The Dragon turned and breathed burning coffee breath out towards the barrel of Kala’s gun.

The weapon was heavy now. The target in its iron sights still emitted a pull that held Kala in an alien orbit between worlds.

“He was afraid to die,” said The Dragon, nodding at the heap of Crow. “But not me. I’ve been around for many long, long years.”

“I’m not here to kill you. You’re under arrest.”

  “No, I’m not,” said The Dragon with a sad shake of the head. “You don’t want to arrest me. You should take the chance to be me. Kill The Dragon to become The Dragon, as I did once. The ultimate fulfilment. The deepest journey available to you.”

“I’m so tired,” said Kala.

“You don’t know the meaning of the word. Not yet. You are in the foothills of a tiredness that will make you fearless, make you welcome death as your only chance to go home. Take what’s mine. Send me home.”

“If I let you leave, where would you go?”

“I’d go somewhere I could rest, a safe place I’ve wanted to retreat to for years.”

“Why did you never go there?”

“Duty.”

“So, if I kill you and become The Dragon, do I inherit the safe place as well as the rest?”

“Yes. But you will never go there.”

“Where is it?”

“Just a small flat on Jagger Street.”

Kala saw the path that his duty laid out for him. He was a single page in an infinite flick book. The gun grew lighter as he prepared himself to leave day and night behind forever. The Dragon was a paper target and Kala was still a cadet.

“What are you waiting for?” said The Old Dragon.           

…