GAAAAAAAN AAAAAAAAT

By Ed Ainsworth

The train was reasonably quiet. Brian sat away from the horrid little eyes of the Druid, black circles of hate that were lined with dark rings of mahogany, staring at him underneath his branch like hair, twisted and knotted and hardened. His coat barely covered his barklike skin, as Elsa smiled a sarcastic hateful smile towards Brian. He turned his attention out of the window.

After their encounter with the Billy Goats Gruff and their sheep-pimping ways they were now headed for London. Brian reached out with his mind again and again trying to find Roma, in case there was something out there that he could connect with, but there wasn’t. He ran a hand over his ragged face; they caught the first train to London from the nearest station in Wales.

Elsa seemed to thrive on the lack of sleep, and Druid was mumbling into his Costa Coffee cup, holding a book in his hands. Apparently, the shops opened early and Druid had enough change to get hold of something to help him, or rather them, in their quest.

Though Brian was still very dubious about it—a quest to kill the perverted fairy tales given to them by Roma? It all seemed a bit fishy. Something was going on with those two as well; Brian could feel their eyes fall on him, as he watched the world go by through the window. He turned slowly to catch Elsa’s eye, she turned her face away from him, and leaned in closer to talk to Druid.

Brian balled his fist, and choked back his anger, the muscles tensing down his sides and shaking slightly.

He got to his feet, the Druid’s hand flying out and grabbing him by the wrist. He looked down at the bark-encrusted digits and pulled his arm away, resulting in the sound of dry snapping wood.

“Toilet,” he rasped, through gritted teeth, before wandering down the aisles and into the train lavatory. He sighed deeply, looking at himself in the mirror, and slamming his fists down onto the sink. Normally, he could have, in fact, he would have destroyed the bathroom, but his powers felt as though they were leaving him. He felt drained, and sick, and hurt and all the emotions that he could ever have felt or thought of trailed through him like a procession of pain. Their stop was coming – then the underground. They had a very specific mission in this instance.

The Tower of London.

Brian hung back from the grouping. Hands in his pocket, and hoodie pulled over his short, blond hair; he watched the way Elsa moved in front of him, eyes trained on her buttocks. They were nice, really nice. Not quite the same as Meggan’s, but he was fairly certain that nothing was going to compare to her, so he should just shut up and get on with it.

He rubbed his face gently, and just watched them walk, stopping at the end of the pavement where one road ran through the other. Elsa and Druid continued to walk on, they were heading for something in particular. Brian leaned against the wall and looked at the dull, gray ground.

“Four and Twenty Black Birds baked in a Pie,” he said to himself, as Elsa yelled over the din of London for him to hurry the expletive up. He shook his head a second time, and eyed the pub across the road with a certain amount of desperation.

“I need the toilet again, I’ll catch up,” he said, ducking into the Arms of the Green Man.

“They’re going to come for me soon.” He stood before the mirror, naked. His features were hidden mostly by the shadows of the room, only the vague shape of his square jawed face remained. He looked at the Raven’s the lined his room. He was the bird master, he was the winged wraith of the tower of London. He kept the metropolis of London Town clear of all the bastards who’d rape her and make her bleed in their names.

It was he who defeated Jack the Ripper, tearing the man’s throat out with his bare hands. It was he who retreated into the realms of myth and legend to wait out this century.

Now it was time for him to become more than a legend, but he asked himself again and again as he stood looking at his withered and broken body, scars lining every inch of flesh.

“Who’s afraid of a fictional man?”

“I’m worried about him,” Elsa said, as they continued further away from the Pub.

“That’s a fucking shock,” Druid said, not looking up from the book in his hands. He’d managed to buy and enchant a fairy tale book, which was leading them to their current location. Not the best divining material, but it was working, so that was a result.

“I’m serious. I am worried about him. He’s important and he can’t go around messing this up like some idiotic love-sick schoolboy.” She retorted, obvious disdain for the one she was sharing a bed with.

Druid looked up from his book, remarkably impressed with the callous nature of Elsa. A tiny twittering of his twig stirred him from his interestingly depraved sexual thoughts.

“Elsa, he won’t mess this up. We barely need him lucid for this, he could be off his tits on Ketamine for all I care, we just need his connection to the country, not his actual mind, words or body. If I could separate it then, well, I would do it, as it is we’re stuck with the unholy trinity of Middle-Class Britain, Mentally-Disturbed Nature and Upper-Class Bitch Mystical.” He looked back at the book, pulling an acorn from his hair and crushing it between his teeth.

“You’re such a shit, Anthony.”

“Ain’t that the truth, Elsa, and maybe one day I’ll let you in on the real reason why I’m back alive again, and not dead like my Geis should have left me.”

He brushed a bark covered hand across Elsa’s bare arm, and she bloomed at the touch. Something defiantly disturbing at their little encounter, though not as disturbing as the sight above the Tower of London.

A man, leaning over the edge of the construct held a black sword in his hands, slicing into a wooden cage, feathers shot into the air. His bare feet felt the air rush between his toes, as he cast the cage down towards the two people below him.

He snorted and spat over the edge towards the flame haired woman, sliding the sword into the tower turrets and straightening his suit jacket.

“Whose afraid of the fictional man?” As Elsa and Druid looked up, the cage fell towards them, releasing thousands of black birds, hitting them both in the body, mostly the eyes and the temples, pecking and screaming in their ears.

The black-suited, bare-footed man leapt off the edge of the Tower, feet first, arcing his arms around his body, wheeling through the air. Druid swept upwards with a burst of nature, trees exploding from the pavement, trapping and impaling the birds, giving him a brief respite, only for the black-suited man’s feet to drive him into the pavement with a resounding thud. The man leapt off deftly, spreading his legs wide to disperse the energy, as Druid spat some fragments of concrete back to their native local.

“Who’s afraid of a few birds?” He smiled, through gleaming black teeth, twisting his wrist, the Black Sword seemingly leaping from the Tower into his hands, flat side upwards to defend against Elsa’s two fisted attack.

“Bloodstone and Druid, am I right?” He flicked his leg upwards, the ball of his foot hitting Elsa square in the face. Her head snapped backwards as she lost footing. The edge of the black sword went through her shoulder, pinning her to the ground, as a Raven sat on his shoulder.

“This is Kevin. He is my drug dealer.” He smiled, a delusion he allowed himself sometimes. He was fictional after all, why couldn’t he write his own continuity? Why couldn’t his drugs be delivered by a Raven when he could leap off towers and punch Druids into the ground?

“Enough of this.” Druid was up on his feet, sleevless jacket flapping around his waist. The wind was picking up, and it was creeping the birds out. The black suited man turned to Druid, removing his suit jacket and dropping it on the floor, running a hand through his black hair.

“I have a totem tower of power from the Tarot Deck of Utherian Exeth Etum, and you want the power of the Cornerstone, right?”

Druid paused for a moment, as the rain came down heavily on them, his lips pursing in confusion, brow furrowing and then ultimately, his face dropping into a neutral position.

“What the bloody hell are you on about?”

Brian sat at the bar, holding the still-full pint of beer before him. Brian was an alcoholic, something that you never recover from, so he was told. It’s not a problem, it’s a disease, something you battle day to day and learn to live with and control in some cases.

Brian never really subscribed to that point of view, and more importantly, he wondered – Why did every day of his damn life have to be part of some battle? Why did he have to be the one to bare the responsibilities of life on his shoulders, when Roma was off somewhere in Astral bliss, Bloodstone and Druid were clearly having some metaphysical affair, and Brian felt nothing for the red-headed whore anyway, because Meggan would always hold his heart, and she was dead.

“Enough is enough,” he said, taking one long continuous gulp from the pint glass until it was drained. He licked his lips a few times, savouring the taste of the hops and the alcohol before ordering another pint.

“I wouldn’t, mate.” A man in a long grey trench coat placed his hand on Brian’s arm and pulled it away from the glass. His shirt was a black cross on a white background, and Brian recognised it instantly.

“God, Don’t start alright? I just want to drink. Yes, you have a nice cheese factory in Camelford, and yes Truro is a nicer place than Weston Supermare. Just leave it out.”

A Cornish person. Normally obsessed with telling people about how Cornwall should be it’s own country and not part of England, this one seemed a bit different a bit more…with it, in the head.

“You’re Captain Britain, or at least you used to be before the dissolution of the Corps,” he said, taking a bar stool and ordering himself a Coke.

“I used to be like you say, Now I’m stuck doing a stupid quest for Roma with two equally stupid people.”

“People who aren’t to be trusted, Brian,” he said, taking a sip from his Coke and turning to the man.

“My names Captain Cornwall, and I’m working as part of an initiative that Roma put together in case something like this happened. There are people in the world who would try to use the power of Merlyn, or England itself to better suit themselves, Brian.”

“I know that.” he said simply, taking another big swig of a beer.

“No need to be so dismissive, mate.”

“Tell me something I don’t know then?”

“We’re part of a shadow-plan to save this country, and we need a Captain England who has experience, not only in this field but also in that of physics.”

Brian looked up from his beer, his attention finally brought away from the mesmerising properties of the amber liquid.

“Tell me more.”

The wind kicked up again, it was more than gale force now. At some angles it took the suited man’s breath away, he looked over his shoulder as bins and smaller objects were ripped from their moorings. The Druid was really piling it on.

Trees exploding from the ground, a hail of acorns and twigs battering him. His birds impaled on the trees that had exploded from the ground.

“You have my attention.” He began, pushing himself inch by inch towards Druid, his fists balled at his side.

“We don’t really want to be fighting you.” Druid said, holding the fable book up to the light.

“What we really want is for someone like you to help us find what’s plaguing Britain.”

“I’m what you really want, eh? Pull the other one, mate.” The suited man pushed forwards, metres from Druid as he pulls a lamp-post from its moorings and swipes Druid in the side, sending him rolling over the cracked pavement.

“I’m fictional. Nobody wants me, but people want to be you.”

“I want you,” Elsa said, standing with the black sword in her hand and blood pouring from the wound down her limp arm.

“I want to kill you and then sex you into a thousand pieces, so listen to what Druid has to say before you find yourself orgasmically shattered by my love.”

Temporarily taken aback by Elsa’s strange outburst, he held himself, ready to fight, but open to conversation.

“You’re a figment of a collective imagination, and what an imagination it is, but it’s degrading. The fables of our lives, in fact the fables of the entire world have let themselves loose in our cosy little country and are fucking things up. You know Snow White has a little Prostitution racket going on? Cinderella picks up ugly women and then sells their parts to cannibals, the bloody Ugly Duckling is has completely wiped Mallards out in Cambridgeshire, and is moving down towards Norwich. That’s PRIME duck country, mate. Think of the Ecosystems!”

The man In the suit dropped his guard and sighed.

“Why do you need me?”

“How do you fight something that doesn’t exist when we’re made of stuff what does exist?” Druid said, matter of fact, as the tree’s receded behind him, the Ravens previously impaled on their branches dropping to the ground and getting to their feet.

“I think I understand,” he said, extending a hand to Druid.

“You need the Black Knight to cut them down to size and send them back to their fictional hell?”

“Exactly. Also, I quite like ducks,” Druid said with an irreverent smirk.

NEXT: The Black Knight, The Roma Initiative and Captain England?