Angel and the Assassin

anything you could put in your arm or up your nose.
    I started running down the steps. I was small for my age then and my legs felt
    like they were going to collapse under me. They felt like candy floss from the
    fairground. At the bottom of the steps Gary looked bigger than he did when I was
    four floors up. I was scared stiff of him even though he was skeletal from doing
    drugs, and not very tall. He had my mum by the hair and he was forcing her down
    on the ground calling her dog shite.
    I threw myself at his legs, and when punching him had no effect, I bit him. My
    sharp little teeth sank right through his dirty, worn jeans into his calf. He screamed
    and let go of my mum.
    He screamed, “Little fucker, I’ll kill you.” I ran and he started chasing me
    across the courtyard. I ran toward the playground where I played after school most
    days, unattended, while my mum went to do her shift at the launderette in the
    precinct.
    Gary caught me when I was halfway up the steps of the slide. I thought he
    couldn’t get me if I went up there, but he grabbed me by the back of my shirt and
    pulled me off. He was smacking the hell out of me by the time my mum got to us. She
    took off her shoe and began to clobber him on the head with it. If she had fought him
    like that when he was beating her up she would have won.
    She screamed, “Nobody hits my son.”
    He had to stop because blood was pouring down his face. Mum always wore
    high heels, even to work in the launderette and the sharp stilettos had done damage
    to Gary’s head. He began to stagger away across the playground. Mum grabbed my
    hand and said, “Come on luv.”
    She began to climb the steps of the slide and I followed her. At the top she sat
    me on her knee. From up there we could see Gary still staggering towards the road.
    “Fuck him. Nobody hits my Kael,” she said. She hugged me tight and we slid down
    the slide together. It was a long slide and we went so fast that at the bottom we flew
    off and Mum landed on her backside, but I was cushioned because I was sitting on
    her. She started to laugh and I laughed too. I didn’t know why I was laughing
    because I was only five years old and both of us were sore from being hit by Gary. I
    laughed because she laughed.
    She said, “No more of that bastard. From now on it’s just you and me.” Even at
    that age I didn’t believe her. We didn’t see Gary again, but it didn’t matter because
    there was a string of others just like him, useless, lazy, always on drugs or booze.
    They were all addicted to something and she was addicted to them. She never
    let any of them say or do anything bad to me, but she always let them treat her like
    shite.

    Angel and the Assassin
    31

    Kael put the diary away in his pocket. Looking down at the blond head resting
    on his shoulder, so trusting, fast asleep, without a care in the world, he kissed the
    top of Angel‟s head.
    I could very easily get addicted to you, boy.
    With great care he eased his arm away from Angel and settled the boy‟s head
    on a pillow. He should have gone through Angel‟s bag before they had left the house,
    but he had been concerned about the amount of time he had spent there. He stood
    up, opened the overhead compartment, and took down the leather backpack. Inside
    he found a pair of leather trousers, a few pairs of underwear, a couple of black
    shirts, some white T-shirts, a pair of sunglasses, and a leather cap. He smiled
    slightly. The boy had the paraphernalia; he must have been planning his life as a
    daddy‟s boy for a while.
    Shoving his hand down to the bottom of the bag, Kael felt something soft and
    pulled it out. Wondering what it was, he held it up to look at it. It looked like the
    kind of thin blanket people wrapped newborn babies in. It was blue with little
    yellow crescent moons all over it, and it was ragged and worn, turning gray. For
    several minutes he looked at it, wondering what the significance of it was and why
    Angel had brought it. Unable to decide, he returned it to the bag and pushed the
    bag back into the overhead compartment.
    Taking his seat next to Angel again, he drew the sleeping boy back into his
    arms and settled in for the flight.

    32
    Fyn Alexander

    Chapter Five

    London, England

    Exhausted, Kael walked into the flat at five thirty in the afternoon. Angel had
    chattered all the way from the airport in the taxi, driving him nuts. Like a typical
    teenager, he wandered straight into the kitchen and