James Baldwin - Stained Glass

Vanya’s piggish eyes fixed on me. His expression was hungry, greedy. He reached for the edge of the altar and hauled himself up to his good leg.

“That’s it. Come here, son.” The priest’s voice was kindly. By the divine right of Kings, give what belongs to the Father, back to the Father.”

The Deacon held out the glass knife, and Vanya collected it on his way past. He limped towards me; I struggled for a moment, testing the alertness and intelligence of the tiger standing on my chest. As soon as I twitched, the claws returned, and the pressure increased. My weakened rib popped with a low ‘crunch’ that I heard in my back teeth and felt as a wave of fresh spasming pain through my chest and gut.

“You,” Vanya rasped. “I always hated you, you prissy little fuckup. Grisha was the only real man in your whole family. He should never have gotten with that Jewish whore… he should have stuck with us . His brothers. ”

I couldn’t speak. My breath rattled through my teeth, frothy with blood and pleurisy.

“You’re a freak!” He advanced on me, dragging his leg, and dropped into a clumsy kneel beside us. “A fucking… freak ! You and Vassily! Faggots! Freaks!”

My face flushed hot with rage, and I tried to struggle up, flailing out for the gun just beyond reach of my fingers. “Don’t you ever speak of Vassily like that again.”

“He was fucking guys in prison, loser.” Vanya reached out with a callused hand, pushing me down by the neck as he shoved my shirt up as far as the spears of glass allowed for. “Wanna know why I took him out? He got that gay disease in there, is why.”

By way of reply, I lunged up and sunk my teeth into his forearm until I tasted blood. He shrieked and raised the knife above my stomach with his other hand, warring with the need to stab me and pull his arm away as I dug my blunt teeth through gristle, muscle and skin. My last gift to the Organization.

There was a sharp bang. All heads turned as the door exploded inwards, showering the four of us in debris. Mason twisted his head, letting off me as three big cats charged in from the stairwell: a tiger as big as a horse, a leopard half her size, and a mountain lion who screamed like banshee as they fell on the room in a tornado of fur and claws. The glass-eaten tiger started up from me with a roar, fangs bared, and charged to meet them.

The Deacon got out of the way, nimble and well trained. He lifted a hand, barking words of power. Vanya tore his arm free from my mouth with a scream, and promptly collapsed as his leg gave out from under him. He pitched to the ground beside me, dropping the knife. Without a second thought, I caught it up, heaved myself on top of him, and put it to his throat.

Jenner hit her mutated partner with a flying four-footed leap, met by the opened arms and claws of her opponent. They were equal in size, and tumbled to the ground in a blur of snarling, flashing teeth, raking claws, and striped muscle. The leopard went for the priest, who finished his spell with a shout and a gesture.

Time slowed in a cone of effect that froze me, Vanya, and both tigers in slow motion, winding down my heartbeat to painful slowness. But even as The Deacon tucked his chin down, arm outstretched in concentration, the animals fought the tide of inertia and then broke through. They flew back into the fray at normal speed, while the dust around them bloomed in slow motion.

But I suffered. And as my body fought the temporal flux and Vanya wobbled in his efforts to escape, he pushed my injured arm aside and I dropped the sacrificial knife. It fell slower than a feather to the floor beside his head.

Before we could adjust, the priest took a full-grown, fully-temporal leopard to the face. The spell snapped, and I collapsed onto Vanya’s flabby bulk with a sharp exhalation and the taste of blood. He was on me in a flash: rolling us over, pinning me down as he shouted, raining spittle down at my face. We flailed for the knife, neither of us able to get a grip on it. My groping fingers found the end of the hilt, but it flew away at speed before I could grasp it. It flew up, turning end over end to smack solidly into the priest’s hand. Duke had taken him down, and it was trying to maul him as he somehow held it at arm’s length. I shouted a warning, but too late – the masked man slammed the unholy glass weapon deep into the leopard’s flank.

“Duke!” I roared his name, struggling with Vanya.

The cry caught the attention of the mountain lion, who was mauling the blind cultist on the ground. When he saw what was happening, his ears flattened, and he lunged for The Deacon with a cry of rage. The priest staggered to his feet, clutching his face to keep the mask over it. He hissed a harsh word, and then bolted for the opposite side of the building, the wall of empty window frames overlooking the canal. Zane was almost on him, front paws lifting to slash, when The Deacon vanished into the shadows and dematerialized.

The ruined white tiger kicked Jenner across the floor with a bellow, sending her careening into the remains of the grain shuttle, and limped up to his feet. He was panting, his empty sockets leaking fresh blood. The wounds Jenner had raked across his belly and flank were rapidly filling with spines of glass, shards that ejected from its flesh to bristle like spearheads as he turned tail and ran in the same direction as the escaping Deacon. Jenner started after him, but put a foot into one of the holes that had caught my foot. She tripped forward, her jaw hitting the ground with an alarming crunch. Mason didn’t vanish – he leapt from the window, eight stories off the ground, and plunged out of sight as Zane bellowed and skidded to a halt before he fell from the precipice. A few seconds later, there was a distant splash from the canal below.

Duke made a low, mewling sound as he tried to get to his feet, the knife still buried deep in his ribs. Sensing distraction, Vanya tried to scramble up on the slippery floor. I punched him in the side of the face with my left fist, pitching him to the ground, and lay myself on top of him to stop him from fleeing.

“The knife!” I shouted. I couldn’t hear myself properly after all the gunfire, but my throat was vibrating enough to let me know that I could still make noise. “Get that knife out of him! It’s cursed!”

“You fucks!” Vanya shrieked. “You cowardly fucks! They fuckin’ ran! They ran!”

The screaming beside my ear blinded me. My ears were ringing, mouth and nose full of the smell of old pennies. I struck Vanya across the face. “Shut the fuck UP!”

The orange tiger had picked itself up. Jenner shook herself with a deep-bodied grunt, and then slouched across to me, eyes burning gold-green even under the black lights. She paused for a moment, surveying me with all the arrogance of a born ruler before she loped past us towards the leopard.

While I scuffled with Vanya, I heard the distant sound of tearing meat. When I looked up, the mountain lion was gone, and Zane stood in its place. He was nude from the back, the glass knife in his hand. The leopard was folded around the injury on his side, panting and moaning, his paws kicking along the floor. Even as I watched, he managed to get his forelegs under him and sit up, tongue lolling from his open jaws.

Zane looked over his shoulder at me. His eyes were a paler jade green than Jenner’s, but just as unnaturally bright and piercing. He didn’t look pleased to see me.

Jenner put her paws on the altar, nearly upending it, and shifted back: a smooth, fluid transition from animal to human. Fur poured back under human skin in a wave; bones popped and resized, organs moved, and all that was left was a wave of iridescent liquid that poured down her body and spattered to the floor, disappearing as soon as it touched the dirty concrete.