In Service of the Dead

London-England

Her hand was sore, she could still feel the burn of the punch as her knuckles cracked in the officer’s face. It was a hard punch, one that he’d find difficult to recover from. She left him in the open street bleeding his mouth out while she ran off not looking back. She picked up her pace, running even faster into the night as she heard the officer call in support.

The crackling of the mic as he signaled his location sent jolts of fear down Grace’s spine, as she straightened her gaze running faster. Her feet were pouncing from step to step, higher and higher, faster and faster as drops of water rose at the crush of her feet. Her palms were wet and she felt a weird sensation as they rubbed around the leather gloves. Her entire body heat up in fear as she began panting, she’d been running for so long, she no longer had any idea where she was or how far she was from the cop.

Her sprint was interrupted as she found herself in the busy corners of the midnight city. Cars wheezed by as sirens rang, emergency voices chattering as lights and flashes blasted her in the face. She was delirious free from her escape as she circled around herself people all over the place seemingly from nowhere. She recoiled herself planting herself back into reality as she recounted her steps, she’d left the officer and he’d called in for backup. If there were patrols on her they would be all over the place by now, busy places were a given and most likely their priority searches, so she needed to get out of sight, fast.

She blended into the crowd following it as she moved forward with no clear destination in mind. As she looked up, she could see the city lights as they pulsated mass media, selling themselves to the market that waltzed and danced in the dead of night. The crowd came to a cease as the road flooded with cars, in the sudden pause, voices bombarded Grace as she began turning her head frequently in shock at shouts and screams. Could it be the police signaling her whereabouts as they’d spotted her, maybe they’d seen her and were shouting her locale, she didn’t know what to think all she knew was that she had to get out of sight.

The officer had a pretty good description of her, redhead with a black leather jacket and grey jeans, if that didn’t give her away, she was wearing bright pink tennis shoes and black gloves. She was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a seating duck in the eye of the sniper. As the crowd continued its march, the cars ceased, she fell in line, bowing her head to the cameras that littered London. The bloody cameras, no way a camera hadn’t spotted her blasting an officer down with her fists, they didn’t even need the officer’s description, just a quick rewind on their systems. There were so many reasons why she could’ve been caught, for all she knew they were watching her right now, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce on her, she didn’t know what to think but if anything was certain, she had to work with the benefit of the doubt. She would play along until she got out of their sight.

Her head bowed, red hair flaring over her sunken face, her olive eyes scanned the area for blind spots, alleys, and escapes from the big brother that surveyed the dark city. This was metropolitan central, there were no convenient alleyways standing by for her to run to, there was no escape and as time crunched on her identity was ever closer to being revealed.

As the mass crowd crossed the streets, a police siren bashed into Grace’s ears as her heart restarted like a dead computer, bolting into action like a leaping tiger as the worst played out in her mind. They would bolt to her locale and jump out of their cars with guns pointed at her, police chatter flooding the scene as the entire city froze and looked on while she was dragged into the back of the car caught with no escape.

The police car wheezed right by her as she walked on, as calmly as possible, the last thing she could afford to do was lose her head. She had to stay in character, she was just a normal girl in London on her way home, no blood under her shirt or a Glock 34 holstered under her jacket no such thing. The car passed away from her sight, its sirens fading from her ear as she looked on at the corner of her eye, it was headed to the officer she’d put down, she knew it, they were getting warmer and she was getting colder from her salvation.

In neon pink, a tattoo parlor flashed into her eyes as she freed herself from the crowd walking on the side streets littered with drunk girls giggling at nothing. How she yearned for that ignorance, that bliss of the unknown she had once experienced, once lived, but that was a long time ago now. With a sickening rise of fear that shook her to the very core, she shot a sharp turn straight into the parlor as she caught her breath and got her act together. Inside the red-lit shop, she found a crowd of teens and drunks eager to make mistakes as they waited for the artist to desecrate their temples in devils and horns, the perfect end to a rowdy night she thought as she reminisced on her past.

Her olive eyes got lost in the floor, it was black, like a rock platform, she could see hints of sweat, drips of blood, and hardcore riffs as they swarmed the room. Her eyes shot up, an innocent girl surrounded by tattooed punks who’d gone full-on metal, this wasn’t just a tattoo parlor, this was a hub a spot, a vibe. The red light, the dark floor, and the black windows, wide and visible as she looked at the night staring at her dead on. The crowds passed her by and as they met her weary gaze they could see through her, they could see the darkness within her the blood of her victim. She saw Davies pass by the crowd as well, a villainous grin on his face as he looked at her, his shirt wet with bullet holes and fresh blood as it flowed out, his soul beginning it's haunting and she was the target. She was the victim, she was his unrest as he searched for peace within the grave.

Shouted a voice as a palm rested on her shoulder, she reacted faster than a cockroach at the sight of a boot, her olive eyes bloodshot with fear, agony, and weariness shot into the artist who looked at her frightened state with equal horror.

She did not have words, they wouldn’t come out so she just walked out of the tattoo parlor back into the London night blinking herself calm. It was a technic she’d theorized could work, her theories were spot off. She felt like she’d just crashed into the street, dead frightened and gripped by her demons that roared awake as the hell inside her ignited alive.

At first she’d just killed Davies, he’d tried to kill her, she was protecting herself. He was after the gun so he technically brought it upon himself, but then it sunk in, she’d just killed a man, it was her first time, a second ago she was an angry naïve girl on the verge of doing something stupid in the name of revenge, now she was a murderer on the run from the police with blood on her hands. What was revenge, for who and why, why did she have to throw away her freedom in the name of the fallen, that little girl that had a bullet planted between her eyes wasn’t about to come back to life anytime soon, what’s done was done.

There was no comeback, no respawns, no revivals, she was dead, her family was dead, her mother ripped to pieces, her father bashed to death, her brother choked before her eyes, there was no coming back there was no resurrections. She would kill the killer of her parents, but she’d just be adding up the body count, as she walked on, her mind on fire, she realized revenge was nothing more than an endless ocean with no land in sight. There was no turning back, no rewinding, there was no destination, no haven, nothing more than a journey of blood, a march with a sword in hand, and as old as time itself, he who lives by the sword will die by the sword. It was her fate, and as Davies died at her hand, her fate was sealed in his blood.

A bright red Ford Capri 1973 sped right next to Grace, ceasing at the sidewalk a tire on the pavement as drops of water splashed onto her wet jeans, bleeding with sweat. Grace turned her head cautiously with a shadow of fear in mind as her hand slowly sifted to the Glock within her jacket.

It was a familiar face, a family face that was here to help. Grace ran faster than death, jumping into the Ford and then bashing the door closed as the dark car was lit by the orange gauges behind the steering wheel. The ride drove forward back into the road falling right into the London traffic.

Recon Bloodworth was her uncle and brother to her dead father. He wasn’t an officer like her father, he found himself at odds with his brother due to the nature of his work. The nature that Grace exploited as she began her pointless crusade in the name of vengeance.

He had no idea what she had done, no Idea what pandora’s box she had opened, he had always tried to be a good uncle, by his standards at least, and it wasn’t really a good bar seeing as he spent most of his weekends breaking teeth and chopping hands in order to root out the rats in his crew. The nature of his work was commonplace for Davie’s demise, but he had tried to make sure Grace wasn’t the one behind the trigger, something he’d clearly failed, quite miserably at that.

She didn’t know what to tell him as the car fell silent, he knew he wasn’t getting any answers from her, not unless she wanted him to, whatever that was going to be unearthed would be through her very own shovel. He kept to the road until he saw her shuddering hand, Grace’s body shivering, trying to shake off the fear that held her hostage.

He cut as it dawned on him, his brother hated him because of the influence he was on his dear kids. Recon and Grace’s father had a sore split in their relationship all because of one event. Grace’s brother was being bullied, he was being pushed around and shat on by the other kids, he was a scared little boy and his father urged him to use his head, while Recon taught him to his hands.

When Recon was done with the child, he fought his bullies at the end of class as they huddled themselves preparing to harass him, in their pre-bully mood, the young boy came and took his best shot while Recon, as scheduled, pulled up in his Ford watching from inside. The boy was fighting an unmatched fight as he stood alone against three bullies twice his size, he had fun with the first one almost punching all the blood out of his face, but as he met the other two they had him on the ground barraging him with kick upon kick.

Recon sat on inside the car, watching as his nephew faced his greatest trials, his virgin face was wet with blood as he was baptized with fire, the fire of pain. It was a lesson that no matter how good your fists were, there were some fights you just couldn’t win. Recon came in the last minute and broke the fight off, bringing a half-dead nephew to his brother who forbade him from ever seeing his nephew and niece again.

After his brother’s death, Recon found himself with Grace, and as he looked at her shuddering hands that refused to calm, he knew she had failed the test her brother had taken. She had picked a fight that she couldn’t win, and sooner or later, two bullies would walk up to her and remind her of how it feels to be on the losing end with no hope of escape.

Grace’s iris shot wide as her hands paused completely, a greater threat in sight as an armada of flashing cars drove down the road they opposed. They blocked every exit with such finesse and style, they'd been watching her all this time. They were watching her every move, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, waiting for her weakest moment when she had let her guard down when she had dropped the sword that they now picked up ready to fulfill her destiny in death at the hands of her blade, her chosen path.

The dark car shot awake, bombed by a ray of light from the helicopter above as its blades swung alive. The blue cars stripped with lime green in a checked pattern on the side of their doors stood in came into sight as the doors burst open, officers coming out with guns in hand. Some had their side arms, others had assault rifles fully armed with body armor and helmets, the law had Grace in sight, and there was no escape.

Her heart beat, her breath rising as Recon heard her pant. Grace turned her head swiftly to the back screen, they were blocked in by traffic, there really was no escape, it was the end of the road. A large voice came from the police as they urged her to step out of the vehicle, they had Identified her, they knew exactly who she was and they knew about Davies.

Grace pulled out the Glock from her jacket, it was black and cold, just like the same one Davies had used when he killed the girl. The story hit her hard, the dark description of the frozen barrel of the gun as it fell on her bare head right between her eyes. Grace wondered how they got that description, how the reports felt her dark frozen death, how they could tell the charcoal black pistol, how they could feel its frozen touch. As Davies ran from the scene, he ditched the pistol in a trash can miles away from his sin.

Hours after the crime, a hobo found the gun in the can as he staggered along the alleyway in search of his meal. He reported the gun to the police and they made the connection, the connection that led the journalists to the cold touch of the gun as it kissed the little girl goodbye. It was the same kiss that Recon now felt as Grace buried her Glock in his head, snipers rolling from buildings and choppers as they zeroed in for a kill shot on the gunwoman.

Her breath was cold, she’d been inhaling the frozen wind of the night, she’d been running all night and she had now run out of road. This was the end for her, and he knew it, they both knew it. She needed him to trust her because she was out of options, becoming very desperate, and desperate people do crazy things. She’d run out of tricks and all she had now was rage, one should never trust their emotions when in crisis.

It was suicide, it was utter stupidity but there was no other option no other play left. This was all that she had as she forced Reco out of the car, opening the driver’s door and then pushing him out, leaning her gun on his head as he walked out slowly, his hands in the air as he played the role, he became innocent. With Reco out of the car, Grace rolled down the window looking at Reco one last time, he needed to know how she would go out, how she would die.

Grace dropped her foot bashing her shoes onto the accelerator as the ford roared, the engine bursting in a fiery charge headed straight for the armada of police as they opened fire. The bullets and bolts exploded in sync within a sea of fire as death held Grace in a dark embrace, she had her fate fulfilled meeting her death at the hands of the sword.

The car drove straight into the army of police cars, bumping them in a huge crash as the officers jumped back. Others were injured by the crash but none were killed, only one person met their end, the police officers recovered to their feet and walked towards the car their guns pointed to the red Ford that lay with a shattered windshield destroyed by the hail of fire from snipers and pistols, assault rifles and the kiss of death.

Her head was bowed, her red hair flaring her dead eyes hiding her face from the officer’s torch as they scanned the scene. Her body was barraged by bullets that blasted through her leaving her completely red in blood, her blood this time. Just as the girl had been avenged, Davies had also been avenged as Grace Bloodworth lay dead, her Glock lying on the floor as scriptures rained true. She was dead, her retribution halted as her path of vengeance came to a fiery end.

END