Flight (30 page)

The man on the floor started to rise.
Balancing her weight on the end of a counter, Prissi jumped up as
high as she could and landed on the man’s outspread wing just below
his shoulder. Something bent. She leapt a second time and felt the
bone beneath her feet break like a green limb in the woods. Prissi
bounded off the screaming man. As she came back into the dining
room, she noticed two people near the front door, as paralyzed as
Lot’s wife, holding cups half-raised to their lips. Prissi bent
over her father.

“Dad. Dad!”

In a mumbled, weirdly dreamy voice, Beryl
Langue implored, “Nora!”

“C’mon, Dad. C’mon. Get up!”

Prissi got one hand under her father’s
shoulder.

“Centuries.”

Boom! Boom! Boom! Crack!

Her father groaned. Prissi eased her other
hand under Beryl Langue’s head and began to lift. His head came up
far too easily. A feeling, as if she had just touched the slimiest
thing on earth, swept over Prissi.

Her father’s neck was broken.

His eyes rolled toward her and fluttered in
recognition. He whispered, “Wallet.” His lids dropped down.

When Prissi rolled her father so she could
reach into his back pocket to get his wallet, his head slipped from
her other hand and smacked against the floor.

Screaming first and, then, vomiting just as
she passed the frozen coffee drinkers, Prissi rushed out the front
door of the KaffeKiosK, took two strides, bent her knees and….

“Here, here, Prissi. Prissi, here!”

Prissi was a few meters in the air. Two
buildings away, with his body in shadow and his head just far
enough forward to be painted with sunlight, was Jack Fflowers
waving a hand to draw her closer.

“Quick. Over here.”

Prissi flung her wing up so quickly in order
to change directions that she felt the joint half-pop. As she
careened toward Jack on a wing and a half, she felt like her mind,
as well as her body, was being pulled in too many directions at
once. Her touchdown by Jack was more controlled crash than landing.
She sprawled forward. He caught her in his arms, held her tightly
for a long moment, flashed a snowy white smile, and pulled her into
an alley. Halfway down the shadowy corridor Prissi could see a
bulkhead with its doors thrown open. Holding her shoulder to
diminish the pain, Prissi raced down the alley-way a step behind
Jack.

“In here. Quick.”

Jack stood aside so that Prissi could go down
the dark steps into a darker gloom. As she hurried past him, Prissi
turned too quickly and caught the lower portion of her dislocated
wing against a sharp corner of the steel door. An excruciating pain
shot from her shoulder to her stomach and the rest of her coffee
shot from her mouth and nose.

“Puking Pluto.”

“Go. Go. Go.”

The panting winger staggered down the ancient
worn metal steps, which clanged in protest at her weight. Jack
followed her for three steps then turned to close the metal flaps
above him.

The small space at the bottom of the stairs
smelled of rust and rot. In the dim light sieving through the
rusted bulkhead doors, Prissi studied the building’s door for a
split second before yanking its handle. Nothing happened. She
violently twisted the handle and shoved the door. Nothing happened.
She tried again, then snapped her head around to Jack

“What’s going on. It won’t open.”

“Probably locked.”

Prissi’s voice pierced the small space with
the sharp crack of an ice break in the Arctic.

“What? You brought me here? To a dead end?
What a freeieekin feeb.”

She shouldered Jack aside and started back up
the stairs. Jack grabbed her wing, the dislocated one, and Prissi
gave a high-pitched moan. Jack dropped the wing as if he had been
shocked.

“Shut up. They’ll hear you.”

Prissi was so incensed at Jack’s stupidity in
bringing her to a place with no escape, and his arrogance in
touching her, that she was vibrating. Finally, to keep from
exploding, she aimed a punch at his head before veering off and
smacking the side of the stairwell.

“Prissi, stop it,” Jack whispered as he took
her arm and led her back down the stairs. Prissi pulled away,
darted back up three steps, whirled around and flung herself into
the air. She smashed into the rotting door, felt it give and
simultaneously felt her shoulder snap back into place. Cautiously,
she half-flared her wing in the enclosed space. She was satisfied
that, if necessary, she would be able to fly—although for how long
was another matter. The feeling that one thing was going better
stopped when she heard the sounds of footsteps crunching over the
alley’s carpet of broken glass and gravel. Jack held a finger to
his lips in a way that reminded Prissi of her father just minutes
before. The tears that instantly welled in her eyes as she thought
of her father further blurred the door handle as she half-knelt to
inspect it.

More steps.

Prissi tugged on Jack’s sleeve and whispered,
“Push.” She pointed to where a crack in the door, seemingly new,
probably from her slam, showed above and below the lockset.

A muffled, “Down here,” came through the
door.

Prissi placed her hands above and below the
doorknob and wedged her feet back against the edge of the second
step. When she twisted her neck to see what Jack was doing, he was
just standing there. For a brief second, Prissi thought that he
didn’t seem to care if he were caught. She hissed and jerked her
head at the door. Jack slowly followed her example. Despite the
fear and adrenaline boiling within her, Prissi was distinctly aware
of Jack’s shoulder alongside hers and the long patch where their
two thighs touched.

The crunching outside stopped and the light
inside the bulkhead dimmed, then, brightened as someone moved about
in the alley.

“Hurry up.”

The command shot through the rusty holes and
caromed inside the stairwell like a marble in a box.

Prissi twisted her head toward Jack’s face
just three inches away. Making her gaze move up from his lips, she
looked into his eyes and nodded. Both sucked in deep breaths and
began to push. The door creaked.

“She’s in here.”

Crunch, crunch, crunch as someone ran down
the alley.

Prissi groaned, a sound which reminded her of
the sound her father had made on the coffee shop floor, as she
pushed with all of her strength. Jack’s efforts and sounds joined
hers and together they sounded like spatting cats under a full
moon. The door cracked. A narrow beam of light split the door they
were pushing against as the bulkhead door above was partially
opened.

Prissi grunted in a voice she herself didn’t
recognize.

“C’mon down, hero. I’ll break your
freeieekin’ wing, too.”

A muffled whisper, “Get on that side.”

Another crack. Prissi felt like she was doing
most of the work. She thought the veins in her forehead were going
to burst through her skin like broken springs. Crack. The door gave
way, but Prissi’s triumphant yell lasted only a quarter second. The
door had opened just ten centimeters before it was held in place by
a security chain. The beam of light from above widened.

“NOW!”

Prissi, her whole body turned to energy like
some graphic novel heroine, propelled herself off the step and
smashed her good shoulder into the door just at the chain. The
rusted screws holding the jamb plate in place ripped loose. The
door hurtled open and Prissi hurtled after it. She barely managed
to keep herself from sprawling across the floor by grabbing at the
door frame as she sped by. Regaining her balance, she could see in
the light coming from the bulkhead row after row of cheaply made
shelves and scores of pallets stacked with open and sealed cases of
wine and liquor. Immediately, Prissi knew where she was. Isabel’s
House of Spirits, was the largest liquor store in Manhattan. The
frantic girl ran to the first open case she saw, a case labeled
Veuve Cliquot, and grabbed two bottles from it. When she whirled
back toward the entryway she almost took Jack’s head off as she
windmilled both bottles toward the pair of legs coming down the
bulkhead steps. Both bottles fell short of their target, but they
did explode, sending flying shards of glass and spumes of
glistening pungent bubbles everywhere. Someone shouted. Maybe in
anger. Maybe in pain. As Prissi retreated to get more ammunition,
Jack scrambled past her with a bottle.

“Dumbnation, Jack, is your other arm
broken?”

As Prissi grabbed more ammo, she caught the
label—Corton Charlemagne—out of the corner of her eye.

Two nearly simultaneous explosions. Then,
three closely spaced individual ones. Jack finally followied
Prissi’s lead and returnedcame back with two bottles in each hand
and one tucked under an arm. A half-case of Pommery exploded. Then,
more explosions. More shouts. A detonation of Haut Brion brought on
a scream. The wine went from a splash to a puddle to a pool
spreading across the floor. Suddenly, there was a loud noise from
behind, and the whole basement jumped into relief as six banks of
ceiling lumos came on.

“What the….”

Feet came pummeling down a set of protesting
stairs behind where Prissi and Jack, now holding two sets of legs
at bay, were waging war. Prissi jerked her head at Jack. They
unloaded the bottles in their hands and skittered sideways down an
aisle to hide. A behemoth of a woman, refrigerator big, with a head
of blowzy black hair so froed it made her head seem
disproportionately large compared to her immense body, waddled,
ran, something, fast and implacable toward the battleground Isabel
came swinging an immense aluminum bat like it was a kitchen spoon.
The owner saw the damage, the assault on her most precious
vintages, the finest wines northern Europe had to offer, and shot
forward with a speed that should have been impossible considering
her obesity. She took a roundhouse swing at the one set of legs.
The resulting noise reminded Prissi of walking on wet peanut
shells. She and Jack didn’t wait to see the fate of the second set
of legs. Moving quickly and quietly, they headed toward the stairs,
which still vibrated from Isabel’s descent.

Prissi whispered, “Tiptoe.”

With the exaggerated movements of amateur
clowns in a small town farce, they silently mounted the stairs and
entered a small office with a large window opening onto Isabel’s
immense display of the world’s harvest of fruits and grains.

A slam and a scream from down below.

“My Pommery. My God, my Pommery. You
slug.”

Jack started to grab the door handle, but
Prissi stopped him.

“Plan?”

Jack shrugged.

“Go slow. Look normal. If that doesn’t work,
then….”

“Run like hell. I’ll meet you at…at…NYPD in
an hour. Okay?”

Jack nodded. He started to step aside, but
Prissi shook her head.

“No, you go first. If my wings catch
something or screw up some new way, it won’t affect you. Go. Go.
Go.”

There were four clerks on the floor, as well
as dozens of customers, when Jack eased through the door. Prissi
watched his jittery non-nonchalant walk through a store forbidden
to anyone under the age of twenty-three.

A clerk looked up, wondered where Jack had
come from, appraised him and immediately started on a diagonal to
cut the under-age interloper off before he could escape. Through
the glass Prissi saw the clerk mouth something. Jack froze and a
second clerk approached on his flank.

Prissi opened, then, slammed the office door
as hard as she could. Customers and clerks both looked to see what
had caused such a noise.

Prissi pulled at her hair as she churned
forward.

“Omagod, omagod. She’s fallen. Aunt Izzy. Tia
Izzy, she fell down the stairs.”

Several customers, obviously regulars, looked
above the check-out lanes to where a huge hologram of Isabel,
deeply cleaved in an operatic red dress with hair much blacker and
more controlled that what Prissi had just seen, smiled down
benevolently on her customers like a mahatma on his initiates. The
clerk closest to Jack wavered, then, as he saw two other clerks
hurry toward the back of the room, he turned his attention back to
the teener. Jack broke his beeline so he could put a large display
of Iowa chardonnays between himself and the clerk.

Prissi intentionally staggered against a row
of nano brews. Green and brown beer bottles went tumbling.

“Her leg. Omagod. Omagod. Her poor leg.
Blood.”

Twenty more bottles crashed to the floor.

Catching Prissi’s diversion out of the corner
of his eye, Jack took up the same tactics. A large, slowly spinning
globe held paks of the world’s snacks—banger and egg crisps from
Scotland. Algae green styro-flavored peapod shapes from Japan.
Setting sun orange cumin and cinnamon flavored extrusions from
India. Other extrudings, improbably pink, of a meat-like texture,
from east of the Urals. Crunchy fried and fiercely spiced
not-yet-endangered insects from the Fifth World. Jack toppled the
globe and tromped through the destruction. Bags burst and sharp
smelling shrapnel flew in all directions.

Jack was less than four strides from the
door. Prissi was thrice that distance away. People were moving in
all directions. Short people, unable to see over the counter to
determine the cause of the explosion assumed terrorists and either
dropped to fetal positions or stampeded toward the doors. The
clerks, knowing the eponymous owner’s wrath at the destruction they
had not been able to prevent, began dropping to their knees, like
grief-stricken mothers after a natural disaster, to salvage
unbroken bottles of wine and beer.

Prissi picked up the pace even as her eyes
dartedback and forth, up and down, trying to pick a path through
the maze of obstacles to freedom.

“The baby! The baby! Tia fell on the
baby.”