Blood on the Bar (Lucas the Atoner Book 1) Read online

  “Innocence is something you have that many do not, Vetta. Now let’s see you to that taxi.”

  She sighed, but despite his rebuff, reached out and took his hand, a gesture he was forced to avoid, leaving her looking even more hurt. He longed to reach out and take her arm and apologise, but that only left him confused. Loneliness was the meat of his existence, but tonight, it felt like a wound raw and bleeding. What was wrong with him? Why did he feel so… odd. And why did he care about what this girl thought about him?

  As they walked through the alleyway, a whit-woo whistled behind them. They turned and saw several shapes emerge from an alcove opposite the pub—three in total—Jake and his two cronies. The whit-woos turned into a mocking rendition of Danny Boy that was surprisingly tuneful.

  Lucas moved Vetta behind him. “Stand back, lass. These chancers are about to do something stupid.”

  Jake had been the one whistling, but he stopped now and glared at Lucas. “Looks like you pulled, Mick. You got a real hard on for the Poles, dontcha!”

  “She’s Slovakian,” Lucas informed the lad coolly. One of Jake’s pals clutched a pool cue and began stoking its length as he leered at Vetta. Lucas made a point of looking the lad in the eyes. “You so much as spit in her direction, and I’ll take yer wee bollocks and swap ‘em with your eyes.”

  The lad snickered, but there was also a glint of uncertainty in his eyes.

  Jake took a swipe at Lucas, an open-handed slap designed to humiliate, but it missed by mere inches when Lucas took a step backwards.

  “Ooh, you’re a fast one!” Jake chuckled—then snarled. “Not fast enough though!”

  It beggared belief, but Lucas didn’t see the next blow coming. It crunched beneath his chin and whipped his head back. He was more surprised than hurt, but the assault left him off-balance, so when a pool cue suddenly cracked against his skull, the world inexplicably tilted.

  “Christ!” came Jake’s voice. “That must have hurt!”

  Lucas peered up at the moon, lying on his back atop the piss-stained pavement. His vision was blurry. His head throbbed in agony, which shouldn’t have been possible. He could count the number of times he’d felt pain on one hand—if it was missing three fingers.

  Christ on a bike, what is happening to me?

  Lucas moaned, hurt badly and not understanding why. His skull thudded like an over-tightened drum. An odd sensation in his gut made him retch, like he needed to get something out. Why couldn’t he find the strength to get up? Things were all wrong. He was all wrong.

  Jake’s mocking laughter turned feral as he stalked after Vetta, and he hollered through the alleyway. “Looks like you won’t be getting any Leprechaun spunk up you tonight, sweetheart.” He grabbed his crotch and sneered. “Never mind, I’ll give you what you want.”

  Vetta screamed.

  Lucas battled to get to his feet, but one of Jake’s cronies put the boot in and sent him tumbling over the dirty pavement. He came to rest, gasping, beside the pub’s wheelie bins. With his face so close to the ground, he spotted a deep scorch mark in the exact spot where he’d woken earlier, but there was no time to wonder about it now. He grabbed hold of one of the large metal wheelie bins and hoisted himself to his feet. Propped up, he turned just in time to catch the snarling thug coming in for Round 2. Ducking a punch, he threw himself forward, ramming his shoulder into the lad’s ribs. Only mildly stunned, the lad rushed back in, but this time, Lucas struck like a snake and rammed two fingers into each eyeball.

  The lad dropped to his knees, squealing.

  Jake’s remaining crony appeared and swung the pool cue from Lucas’s left, parting the air with an audible whoosh. Lucas was too sluggish to duck in time, but he managed to get an arm up and absorb the blow into his armpit. It knocked the wind out of him, but he held on long enough to tackle the lad into the bin and wrench the pool cue away. Then he cried out as the lad fought back, ramming rights and lefts into his ribs. Eventually, he managed to turn and dodge a punch aimed at his head, giving himself an opening. He straightened his neck and rammed his forehead into the lad’s nose. An audible crunch and the lad dropped like a lump of coal. Lucas kicked him in the backside for good measure.

  “Yer pa must have been a cactus. Because you’re a right wee prick!”

  It wasn’t his best line, but it would have to do. Vetta’s screams were calling. Jake had chased her all the way down the alleyway by now, and it sounded like he’d caught her. Clutching his ribs, Lucas hurried as quickly as he could. He found Vetta scrambling through a patch of muddy grass outside a Chinese takeaway, with Jake on top of her. He was trying to flip her onto her back, and even at a distance, and in the darkness, Lucas could see the animal lust on his face. Jake couldn’t stop what he was doing now even if he wanted to. The beast had him. That and a shit-load of Columbia-knows-what.

  Lucas roared, and felt exuberant as his fire suddenly returned from wherever it had fled, whooshing back into his body. The weakness that had oddly befallen him was gone. He was himself again.

  And in one hell of a pissing bad mood.

  “Get off her!” Lucas bellowed. “Get off her before I show you what true violence really is.” Jake was obviously surprised to see Lucas back on his feet, and he glanced towards the alleyway for his friends. Lucas snarled. “They can’t help you now, lad.”

  Jake clambered to his feet, allowing Vetta to scramble away on her knees. He seemed to consider his options but decided to rush at Lucas with both hands ready to brawl. As soon as he was close, he threw a punch, an arcing haymaker that could have put an elephant to sleep. Lucas threw a punch of his own, equally dangerous, just as fast.

  Their fists collided in mid-air, seasoned conkers cracking together and making the sound of a gunshot. Jake yelled and recoiled, clasping his right hand as if it was on fire. “Y-You broke my goddamn hand, you maniac!”

  “Aye! And because I’m having an off night, that’s all I’ll break. Now sod off before I really get going.”

  Jake sneered. “I’m going to ki—”

  “What? Kill me? Believe me, boy, far greater villains than you have tried. Plenty of heroes too. Yet here I stand.” Barely though it might be.

  Jake swallowed, then looked about sheepishly, before turning and fleeing into the alleyway like a kicked cat.

  “Wise move,” Lucas muttered to himself. “Eejit!”

  Vetta stood nearby, sobbing like a frightened child who had lost her mother, and Lucas did something to which he was unaccustomed. He went and put an arm around her. “Everything will be okay,” he said. She was safe.

  She was trembling. “H-He was going to-”

  “I know what the maggot was planning to do, lass, but he didn’t. You’re fine. You’re okay. Lucas has got you.”

  Vetta was a child in his arms, and her fear made him ache. He didn’t let go until her tears dried up.

  It took some time.

  “How did you fight them all off? Those… those bastards!” Vetta had recovered from her ordeal and was now angry that Jake had attacked her. The anger was good though, for it meant she wouldn’t let fear cow her. She clutched Lucas’s right hand now and examined it closely. “You’re not even hurt.”

  “I have tough, old bones,” he said, although he felt more fragile than ever. “Takes a lot to cast me down. God himself, one might say.”

  She frowned, perhaps sensing there were unapparent truths in his words. He chided himself for toying with her, but she didn’t seem irritated by it. In fact, every time she looked at him, she seemed fascinated. She broke away from her stare to check her watch, a clunky gold thing, then tapped her finger against the glass. “My taxi will be any minute. You sure I cannot have number? I would like to see you again, Lucas, if only being friends.”

  He hugged her, growing to enjoy the contact. “You’ve already suffered enough of my company, lass. Don’t give yourself any more reason to blame me.”

  She tiptoed and kissed him on the cheek. “Of all people in the world I b
lame, Lucas, you are not one.”

  Headlights flooded the road at the bottom of the hill and Vetta wished him goodbye. She glanced back once, but if she did so a second time, he didn’t see it because he hurried back into the darkness of the alleyway, wanting to take another look at that scorch mark he had seen. It meant something.

  But what?

  Jake and his thugs had scarpered, but they shouldn’t have posed any threat to Lucas anyway. He was invincible. All powerful. But not tonight. Instead, he had taken half a beating and allowed an innocent girl to be assaulted. The fear in Vetta’s innocent blue eyes already haunted him.

  He reached the spot behind the pub where he had seen the scorch mark and stopped. A blue light hummed above the back door, but there was little else to see by. That the moon was full helped a little, but he had to kneel to get a proper look. The scorch mark was still there, and he was sure it was the exact spot where he'd woken up. What had burned the ground here? Had hellfire accompanied his arrival?

  Arrival from where? And why did I end up in an alleyway behind a pub? How bloody much did I have to drink?

  But it wasn’t a booze blackout. Such things were not a burden to one such as him. No, this was something else. Something that terrified Lucas to his core.

  Confused, he reached out a hand, hoping to find further clues around the scorch mark, but before he could investigate further, a massive rush of air buffeted his back and knocked him forwards onto his hands and knees. A single blue feather fluttered down in front of his face and came to rest on the ground. He recognised it immediately, and when he leapt up and whirled around, the brightest of lights blinded him.

  A light he knew all too well.

  Heavenly Aura.

  Not now! Christ on a bike, not now.

  “LUCIFER, FALLEN ANGEL OF LIGHT, ADVERSARY AND DECEIVER, FATHER OF LIES AND ABYSSAL LORD, SATAN, DEVIL INCARNATE, AND RIGHTFUL MONARCH OF HELL. I BESEECH YOU.”

  The light faded, and Lucas faced his kin. “I go by the name Lucas nowadays, Gladri. And you don’t need to shout. I have the same hearing you do.”

  Gladri raised a delicate white eyebrow and gave a hollow interpretation of a smirk. He was beautiful as always—flawless—but it was that flawlessness that made his features so uninteresting. That and the fact he struggled to emulate any single human emotion.

  “And you sport a peculiar accent as well,” he commented. “Very well, I shall grant you your delusions… Lucas.”

  “And I shall grant you yours, Gladri, but first d’you want to reign in your glory a bit? You're making a fella feel a tad inferior.”

  “My apologies!” Gladri retracted his vast blue and red wings like the receding plumage of a posturing peacock. The thick scars on Lucas's shoulder blades twinged with phantom pain as he recalled his own lost appendages. His wings had been magnificent, the blackest of blacks, and of greater span than all but one other angel. Gladri’s were minuscule by comparison. He tried not to dwell on the loss. It would only make him angry.

  “What can I do for you, brother?” Lucas asked wearily. “It’s unlike you to dirty yourself in the realm of men—especially a manky alleyway outside a boozer.”

  Gladri glanced around and seemed to notice the squalor for the first time. As if to taunt him, a fat rat scurried from one side of the alley to the other. Disdain clung to the angel’s face as he spoke. “It is good to see you again, brother, all things considered, but the reason I seek you is not social.”

  “When is it ever? I was hoping Heaven may have forgotten about me by now. They stopped inviting me to the Christmas party ages ago.”

  Gladri laughed, but it was an approximation of the sound and thus crudely artificial. “Heaven can hardly afford to forget you, Lucas.”

  “Oh, come on! I have done no great ill in two millennium!” he shrugged, “Okay, a slip here or there, but not too wicked, and that thing with the badger and the marmalade wasn’t my fault. Is it not time to finally leave me be? Surely there are more pressing issues for Heaven to deal with?”

  Gladri spotted another rat and shuddered. He brushed his platinum tresses behind his ears as if he feared they might drag on the ground. “Do not think me naive, Lucas. You have no desire to be left alone.”

  “Really? How’s that then?”

  “If you wanted peace, you would have stayed in Hell, instead of leaving it in disarray. No, you desire Heaven’s attention. You seek Father’s forgiveness. Ha! The Devil seeks to atone. Is it absurd or poetic?”

  Lucas sighed. “How about tragic?”

  “Yes! Yes, that is it! Your existence is tragic, brother, and destined to become more so, I fear.”

  Lucas groaned. Here it comes! The telling off. The mockery. The contempt. Lucas was no stranger to Heaven’s sanctimony, had even gone to war over it. “Spit it out, Gladri! Either that or let’s go find a place still serving beer.”

  Gladri winced. “Beer? A base substance depriving beings of virtue. You are a disgrace, brother, as much now as you ever were. You act like you wish to be one of them—a human—but it is an act, is it not? You do play the part well, admittedly, empathising with their plight, trying to right wrongs... Yes, yes! Fighting the good fight, a reformed villain delivering justice. Ha! Wonderful. But you do not love humanity, brother. You seek only to undermine the past. If you simply do enough good, surely you shall be welcomed back into Heaven, a warrior returned. We’ll throw a parade and Michael himself shall embrace you.” Gladri's glorious face darkened and the joy of reunion seemed to depart. “It is fantasy. A charade. You pursue your own ends under the guise of kindness, and it mocks us all. There is no way back for you... Lucifer.”

  Lucas felt his temper boiling. Tonight was not a night he would heed a lecture. “I thought God forgives! Isn’t that his whole gig?”

  “He forgives much, but not all. And not us, brother. Not we, the first sons and daughters. We subscribe to a higher standard. You know this, for you were once the best of us. It still pains me at how far you’ve fallen. Michael is still to cease his weeping.”

  “The dote always was a cry-baby,” Lucas muttered. This was the kind of piousness that had led him to turn against Heaven, and he enjoyed hearing it no more now. “You think we subscribe to a higher standard, Gladri? Why? Because of the power we wield? Angels have no power, merely the illusion of it. What can an angel do in Heaven but obey? At least down here there are consequences—choices. Perhaps you're right though, perhaps I do have an agenda for helping humanity, but you’re wrong about one thing.”

  Gladri rolled his eyes, a gesture most unbecoming of an angel, and it seemed to make the musky air in the alleyway groan. “And what is that?”

  “I love humanity with all my heart. It is the only thing that has given me any joy during my everlasting penance. My brothers abandoned me because of a mistake I made long ago, and still you refuse to forgive me. You cast me into a fiery pit, you took my light...” He inhaled and tried not to let the memories cripple him. “You took my wings, you… you… you feckin’ dryshites!” He took a moment to gather himself, pinching his nose and focusing on the brittle bone beneath the flesh. When he looked up again, there were tears in his eyes. Even now, the memories devastated him. “And yet, I love you all still. Father too. You say I am Fallen, Gladri, but I love more now than I ever did in Heaven. Love does not exist in duty and obedience. It exists in sacrifice and desire. Without consequence, love amounts to nothing.”

  Gladri flapped his wings in irritation, sending rubbish and dust hurtling down the alleyway. Two plastic shopping bags rose up and danced together like lovers in the moonlight, and that orphaned blue feather appeared again, swirling upwards into the night like it was en route to the moon. “You are a celestial being, Lucifer, as am I. You are not special. You are not different. One must applaud your rousing speech though, regardless of its delusion. Play a part long enough and you shall become it.”

  Lucas growled. “It is not an act! I understand humanity more than any brother in Heaven. My rebell
ion was only unforgivable because those in Heaven lack the ability to see past blind obedience. To not do as commanded is the only sin in Heaven, and it encompasses all. Down here, amongst the weakness of mankind, there are countless sins, yet all can be forgiven. Any soul can atone. Father sees that too, I know it. He would not have cast me down just to punish me. If that were the case, he would have closed Hell off from Earth and left me trapped there forever—but he did not. He tethered Hell and Earth together, and allowed me to mix with mankind, to learn its ways and see the strength he placed in the hearts of every man. I am down here in the dirt because Father intended me to be, so let me get my hands dirty. There’s work to do, let me get on with it.”

  “No, brother, you are here because you broke Father’s heart beyond mending, and you have made a nuisance of yourself across the tapestry for too long. Heaven’s patience is at an end. It does not please me to render unto you Father’s latest judgement, but it is my duty. As you, yourself, once taught me.”

  Lucas knew when it was time to go, so he prepared to make a run for it, but when he tried to phase away, his body went nowhere—in fact he was frozen stiff. He couldn’t move even the smallest finger on either hand, and he had to fight just to get his lips moving. “W-what are you doing, brother?”

  Gladri thrust out his delicate hands, summoning blue flames of heavenly fire. His eyes became icy lanterns, and his words cast white smoke into the air. “The sentence is already passed, Lucifer. You may have felt its beginnings already, but I am here to render it whole. From henceforth, you shall walk amongst the lower creatures as one of them.”

  Lucas fell to his knees, body burning. His chest sucked agonisingly inward—air rushing into virgin lungs. His vision deteriorated rapidly, losing colour and clarity. Hearing dulled. Strength ebbed away. A hollowness fell over him, of which he had never known—even in the lowest pits of Hell.