Feeling of a God

Elijah and Silas are partners in crime - but what will happen when something threatens this? (Blah, I'm bad with descriptions.)

The flat seemed to breathe in the twilight; a cold draft ruffled the crinkled papers held by a rock on the scuffed coffee table.  Elijah sat, elbows on his knees and shirtsleeves rolled up as he leaned over the low table, fingers running carefully over the cold metal of the disassembled Colt M1911 as he waited for the storm with tension in his shoulders.  The Colt was flawless, pristine, and that alone was enough to piss him off.  Unfired.  No scratches, no scars of honor.  No proof of skill, or initiation.  It was hardly living up to its full potential.

Like me.

Still, the irony wasn’t lost on him.  A triggerman who had never pulled the trigger?  It was nearly impossible to miss the irony.  He sighed, slipping the trigger back into the frame, the magazine release - all an effortless blur.  Never pulled the trigger, but a master of disassembly and reassembly.  All he could do besides hold it and intimidate on jobs.  All Silas would allow him to do.  Always saying he wasn’t old enough, that he wasn’t ready.  His jaw tightened at the thought.  The man believed he was such a god. . .  In less than ten minutes, the fully reassembled pistol was lying on the coffee table and Elijah stared at it.

He sighed then, his breath crystallizing in the air before him, and Elijah fell to the side, sprawled on the couch.  His eyes fixed on the interplay of smoky shadows and moonlight on the ceiling and his fingers toyed idly with a loose thread on the three-seater couch.  Why they even had a three-seater couch was beyond Elijah.  After all, it was only him and Silas in the small flat - there wasn’t even enough room for a third person to stay.  That aside, there were other chairs for guests.  It was a mildly vexing issue.  Hardly important, and certainly not worth the time, but then there was little else for him to focus on in the sparse flat while he waited for the inevitable storm.  The cracked ceiling annoyed him as well - they’d have to fix that soon.  Maybe.  With one foot on the arm of the couch, he tapped out a beat - some new jazz song or another.  He could hear the piano plunking along with the taps but after a moment, he realized it was only the slow ticking of the single clock on the wall.  His foot halted. 

He could smell the storm now.  It smelled faintly of sandalwood and soot, as well as the prickling sharpness of gunpowder.

The door opened and closed and Elijah listened as the shoes hit the floorboards, one after the other, repetitive - thunk, thunk, thunk - until they stopped just behind the couch.  A small bitter smirk curled Elijah’s lips and he stretched back his neck to grin up at the newcomer.

“Elijah.”  Silas’s eyes narrowed and he set a hand deliberately on the back of the couch, careful, restrained.  “You weren’t there.”  There was no question in it; Silas seemed to deal in facts.  It was something Elijah had grown used to over the past two or so years.

With a groan, Elijah swung his legs over the side of the couch, pushing himself into a sitting position again with a grimace.  Best not to take this lying down.  “Well, figured ya didn’t need me,” he answered, looking up at Silas from the new perspective, something challenging in his eyes.  “Was I wrong?”

“Perhaps.  I’m sure the client would have appreciated your input.”  Silas moved to stand beside the couch; he shook his head.  “And it would have saved me the trouble of explaining to you.”

Elijah snorted.  “It won’t kill ya, ol’man,” he said, settling back against the cushions, making himself comfortable and pushing down the feeling crawling in his gut.

Silas’s grip on the backrest of the couch tightened but he began regardless.  “Levi Rankin, industrious, wealthy, well-connected, with a thorn in his side.”  The same old story, familiar enough that Elijah was certain he could finish the rest himself if he cared to.  “A friend he owes money to.  He would rather not pay.”

Same old, same old.  Elijah rolled his eyes.  “See?  That weren’t so hard, was it?”

The question was ignored, and Silas took his hand from the couch, slipping it into his coat pocket.  “Your absence made you seem unprofessional and, by extension, me as well.”  Though his expression remained passive, something in his voice clearly told of disappointment - the kind of disappointment a parent feels for a child who has failed to meet expectations.  Elijah could feel his hackles rise at that and he grit his teeth.  Arguing with Silas hardly ever did him any good in the end, even after almost two years of working together.

“Not this ‘gin,” Elijah muttered as he got to his feet, checking over the pistol one last time before sliding it into his shoulder holster.  “I don’t wanna hear it.”

There was no change in Silas’s demeanor as he turned his head just enough to watch Elijah storm out, pausing only to grab his coat.  “Don’t get too drunk,” he called after him.  “We have a job tomorrow night.”

“Yea, yea.”

Even the slam of the door behind him wasn’t enough to alleviate the frustration that had tensed Elijah’s muscles.  Rainwater sluiced down the dirty gutters as he stalked down the street, a destination only half-formed in his mind.  The laundry, he supposed, would do wonders.  A pint of bathtub gin, or some such.  The Volstead Act and Prohibition had been in effect for just over a year now, and though it had significantly increased business, Elijah still adamantly believed it was the devil’s plan to make him walk five blocks every time he felt dry.  The soles of his shoes scuffed the concrete; he kept his eyes on the street as he turned from Willow Street to Sedgwick Street, waiting for the trolley.  It wasn’t a stop, but he could at least catch it as it passed.  He let his eyes drift over the buildings, the towering rich apartments - expensive and well-kept.  He looked rather out of place amongst them, in only faded slacks, shirtsleeves, and a coat.  He knew well enough it was a fact that irritated Silas, but he couldn’t have cared less what he looked like.

The trolley rattled down the road only a few minutes later, and Elijah started down the street beside it, picking up pace until he managed to reach out and grab hold of the rail, hauling himself up on the step.  As he rode, he kept one hand shoved deep in his pocket, letting his heavy coat hang open.  The cold was a fair enough trade-off, he decided as the long fingers of his left hand curled around the handle of his switchblade.  Always the left - no one ever expected it to be on the left.  A useful trick and you could never be too careful in Chicago.

Streets flashed by, Wisconsin Street, then Center, Garfield, and finally Webster.  He let go of the rail, jogging a bit before slowing down and walking the last block.  The large building made his lips curl slightly to a smirk, the boarded up windows, and the abandoned look.  It was convincing.  He walked to the back, pushing open the door to the small ‘laundry.’  He passed through the inner door, into the speakeasy, taking a seat at the bar, facing out toward the patrons.  He sat with his elbows on the bar and his long legs stretched out.  Behind him, he could hear the small elevator rattle as it pulled up the moonshine.  The speak was far from packed now, but given that it was a Wednesday, he didn’t find this too far out of the ordinary, and this was just the time he liked it.  The smoky atmosphere and dark wood furnishings of the wide hall were almost soothing at times like these.

His peace hadn’t lasted longer than five minutes, when a voice called out over the noise.  “Eli!”

Elijah turned his head, enough to see a man waving clumsily from the other end of the bar.  He recognized him from the gang Silas had affiliated them with last August, after the move.  Sven Larson, a year younger than Elijah, blonde, thick as an ox and about as bright; willing to tell anyone who would listen about how they’d managed to mangle his surname when his parents emigrated.  With an absent gesture, Elijah invited him down; it was clear the moment Sven stood that he was well past his first drink and he nearly fell against the stool beside Elijah, chuckling to himself.

“Careful,” he warned the younger man, setting a hand on Sven’s shoulder to steady him.  “How many’ve ya had?”

Sven plopped heavily onto the stool, grinning.  “Dunno.  S’it matter?”

“Nah really.”  Elijah took the opportunity to reach back and grab the drink the bartender had gotten for him, tossing down a few coins.  “What’s new?”

The ice clacked in the glass as Sven picked up what Elijah was sure must have been his fourth drink, tipping his fedora to the bartender.  “Not much.  Hear ‘bout that picture?  Got a new star, they say.”

“Chaplin’s bettah.  The Kid was a real gem.”

And so the argument continued, back and forth on the merits of Valentino’s ‘breakthrough’ performance and Chaplin’s heartwarming tale, until they sank into simply trading news on the locals - who was shipping where nowadays, bounties, the boss - and of course, dolls.  Such as their conversations always went, the more Sven drank, the looser his tongue, and Elijah couldn’t resist hearing what others thought of him, of Silas.  He preferred to know the score, his reputation - and in Chicago, reputation was everything. 

Elijah leaned in, his elbows on the bar now as he faced the younger man.  “An’ Silas?  We gainin’ ground wit the gang?”

Sven wrinkled his nose, his ruddy cheeks puffing up for a moment at the question; his eyes nearly crossed on his nose before moving to Elijah. “Best . . . find you a n- . . . new partner,” he said after a moment, whispering loudly, pitching closer, his chin on Elijah’s shoulder.  He smirked a bit, putting a thick, callused finger to his lips.  “Too shifty.  Boss is gonna kill ‘im.”

It took a moment for the slurred words to sink through the alcohol-induced haze.  Kill him?  His eyes widened as he realized the implications, what Sven was saying.  “Kill ‘im?  F**k, ya sure?”

“Mmhm.”  Booze had certainly made Sven sluggish now, and his eyes began to droop.  “Herd ‘im tell Blaine - Harding, from that gang up north, y’know? - ta do it.”

He knew.  The boss used the man on occasion, and Elijah and Silas had worked with him once on a large haul, but all these things paled in comparison with the urgency.  “When?”

At the harshness of Elijah’s tone, Sven cringed, groaning as it must have sent shocks of pain through his head.  “Sssh. . .  In ‘bout a week.  Thursday th’third.  By th’dock.”  He snorted.  “Why ya care, ‘nyway?  Ain’t you always fightin’?”

Elijah tensed at that and a moment later pushed Sven from his shoulder.  “Yea, well . . . got kinda used ta havin’ him ‘round.”

The sudden move sent Sven slumping to the bar with a grunt.  He looked up at Elijah.  “Wassat for?”  He paused then, snickering.  “What, are ya some kind o’ fairy?”

“No!  ‘Course not!”  Elijah was on his feet by then, fists clenched.  Indignation and something else was twisting in his gut now.  “No.  Look, I gotta go.”

Sven was left blinking after Elijah’s back for a moment before noticing Elijah’s abandoned drink and taking it as his own.

The rain and the stinging cold of the night air barely seemed to seep through his chaotic thoughts, his wingtips slapping against the wet ground.  The five blocks felt like one continuous blur, with only the bleak knowledge that the gang had turned on Silas - and the question of what he should do.  There were no lights on in the flat when he finally opened the door; he took no notice of the dark, closing the door and going directly to the bedroom.  Pausing in the doorway, however, he rubbed his thumb thoughtfully over the old wood of the doorframe as his eyes fell on the nearest bed - Silas’s bed - and the rise of the covers that told of the other man’s presence.  He sighed after a moment and moved to slip under the covers of his own bed on the far side of the room.  Changing was far removed from his mind as he slipped beneath the covers, wet clothes and all.

Not even the damp, which would have been rather uncomfortable, could break through the torrent of thought filling his head.  The questions of what and why flitted behind his eyes like butterfly wings.  If the gang wished to kill Silas, then what did it really matter to him, he wondered.  He could find a new partner for his operation, maybe settle, finally, in Chicago instead of living out of travel bags as though they would pick up and leave any day.  The gang apparently had no quarrel with him, and wasn’t that something that Silas himself had taught?  Every man for himself - or something.  Elijah couldn’t quite seem to remember.  He turned his face towards Silas’s bed in the darkness, as though the man could answer his silent question.  There was no movement or answer of any kind from the dark, and Elijah closed his eyes; he sighed.

“Go to sleep.”

Silas’s low voice nearly made Elijah jump out of his skin and he sucked in a breath to calm himself.  “Yea. . .” 

#

“Hold still, this will sting.”  Silas doused a cotton ball with iodine tincture from the small medical kit he always carried, eyes squinting to see in what light managed to reach the alleyway from the street lamps.

Despite best efforts, the terse warning did little to ease the tension Elijah was feeling as he leaned slightly away from the other man.  “Easy fer you ta say. . .”

They were sitting in some alley or another - Elijah’d forgotten the street name in the shock of gunshot - on old crates, Silas turned to Elijah’s side and holding the younger man’s right upper arm in a firm grip.  The moment the ball of cotton and iodine touched the graze, Elijah hissed out a breath between his teeth, hands gripping the edges of the crate to keep himself still.  Silas seemed wholly unconcerned and more beleaguered than anything else as he finished up, turning to pull a small roll of gauze from the medical kit.  The job they’d been sent to do hadn’t gone quite according to plan, there being more guards than they’d expected.  Elijah had tried to barrel into it, with the intention of taking out the men by surprise, only to have a bullet graze his arm for his trouble.  By the time he’d recovered, Silas had taken down the guards, leaving the shipment free for the taking, and Elijah’s pride more wounded than his arm.

At the objection, Silas sighed.  “I warned you to stay behind me - you should have listened.”

“Oh shut up.  I can do it myself,” he muttered.  “I ain’t stupid.”

“You seem it sometimes.”

Elijah nearly flinched at the words, as though the older man had struck him.  It seemed as though he was never good enough, as though Silas would never see him as anything more than the sixteen-year-old pickpocket he’d taken in to teach the ropes of the life of guns for hire - but for Chrissake’s, he was nineteen now!  He turned his face from Silas.

It was a moment more before Silas continued: “Maybe this will teach you.”

“Yea. . .  Teach me.  Sure.”

As if tryin’ it once wouldn’t teach me.

Efficient, if nothing else, Silas wrapped the wound tight, tying it off and tucking the ends down.  He sat back for a moment, looking it over once, before putting the supplies away again, and putting the kit away in a pocket.

The silence stretched in the cold air, and Elijah could hear the chatter of the Friday crowds along the street.  Two days, since he’d talked with Sven and the streets were dry.  It’s the twenty-fifth now.  Time’s runnin’ out.  Should I ev’n do anythin’?  Silas sighed, and Elijah looked back to him.

Silas looked suddenly old, and it occurred to Elijah that Silas’s thirty-first birthday had only been a little over a week ago - had he even told the man congratulations? 

“Elijah, are you all right?”

Taken by surprise at the question, Elijah opened his mouth only to close it again.  “I. . .  M’fine,” he finally managed to force out of his throat after a moment.  “Why?”

The older man only shook his head, though Elijah caught the briefest glimpse of a faint smile, before levering himself to his feet with a grunt and straightening.  “We should go.”

Of course, Silas knew best, and Elijah nodded, slipping his arm back into his shirt and coat sleeve as he stood to follow.  Two years, and Silas was still just as much of a mystery to him.  He still felt like just as much of a kid around him.  He realized then: this was his moment to prove himself.  He wouldn’t tell Silas, he would do this himself.

#

It was a well-known fact that Blaine Harding spent most evenings in the alley beside Prohibition Willy’s Speakeasy on the corner of Diversey and Halsted, dipping in now and then for White Horse Scotch and Portuguese brandy, and the twenty-eighth was no different, despite being a Monday.  He didn’t look up as Elijah turned into the alley.  Not until his name was called did he turn his attention from his cuticles.  His blue eyes were piercing - that was the first thing Elijah noticed.  The second, a bred-in demeanor of superiority that instantly rubbed him the wrong way.  Still, he relaxed the tension in his muscles, forcing calm to his limbs, as he raised a hand in greeting.

Blaine raised a delicate brow.  “Yea?”

“C’mon, th’boss said yer supposed to come to a pick up wit me.”  The lie was smooth on his tongue, practiced, and he suddenly hoped it wasn’t too obvious.

Fortunately, Blaine didn’t seem to read too much into it - the smell of hooch answered as to why.  He pushed off the red and salmon brick wall, shoving his hands in his pockets, and followed Elijah to the snow-doused street.  Elijah kept his eyes to the road ahead, going over the directions and checking off the markers as he went.  Down Diversey to Sheffield, then the ‘L’ train to the Sheridan station.  All the while, idle chatter, though it was subdued and died off as they made their way down Irving Park Boulevard.  As they passed through the elaborate bronze gates of the cemetery, hush seemed to blanket them.  The white snow on the graveyard looked like fog in the twilight as Elijah walked beside Blaine, the perfect compliment to the silence.  Elijah was acutely aware of the light thump of his holster against his ribs now, could feel the sweat on his palms despite the cool air which made them slick and numb.  As it was growing darker, the cemetery was deserted and the trees stood as skeleton guards for the mausoleums.  On the path, the snow was little more than slush and crunched wetly as they moved up Evergreen Avenue, near the outer edge, the trees to their right.

“Here,” Elijah murmured quietly as they neared Dexter Graves’s monument.  “Boss said ta meet ‘em here.”

Blaine nodded, his eyes on the bronze statue - a towering figure of Death, one arm raised to hide part of its shadowed face, the snow blending into the marble at its back, collecting on Death’s shoulders as the trees vaulted over it in a kind of mock chapel.

They stood, admiring the statue in silence, the snow beginning to drift down on them.  Elijah could feel it land in his hair, on the back of his neck - then the sensation of the flakes melting, the water - cold and clashing with his warm skin - slipping beneath his collar and down his back as he watched Blaine’s back.  The sounds of the city were distant now, a constant thrum in the background - the L hidden by trees to their right, the cars, the trolleys.  Surely there were people as well, somewhere.

But the cemetery held only their thoughts entwined with the mausoleums, the snow, and the weepers.  And Death.

“Shouldn’t they have been here by now?” Blaine asked, slipping his hands inside his coat, under his arms.

“Maybe.”

Elijah’s fingers curled around the M1911’s grip, tightening and pulling.  He only managed to pull it halfway from the holster when Blaine turned, his own pistol aimed at Elijah.  He didn’t fire - didn’t have a chance as the hollow-point tore through his shoulder with only the soft pop of a silenced pistol as warning.  Elijah was frozen as the fine mist of blood splattered across his coat, flecked across his face.  Eyes wide, fixed on the man, he couldn’t look away.  Blaine had doubled over, dropping his pistol and falling to one knee, as he clutched at his shoulder, the blood already beginning to stain his hand.  The quiet footsteps almost went unheard for the pounding of Elijah’s heart in his head.  When he finally tore his eyes away, Silas was beside him, face impassive as ever.

“S-Silas. . .”  His voice sounded foreign to his ears and quickly died in the air.

The older man said nothing, bending down to grab the pistol and pocket it.  He watched Blaine gasp and grit his teeth in pain for a moment longer.  “Do you still think you’re old enough?” he asked suddenly, quietly.

Elijah found he couldn’t answer, his tongue leaden and his hands trembling imperceptibly.

“Can you do it?”

He looked away from Silas, at the man kneeling before him as though in prayer, head bowed.  His arm seemed to move of its own accord then - For Silas - cocked the hammer - as proof - pulled the trigger.

He didn’t hear the gunshot, though by all rights he should have, but the recoil jarred him from the near-trance state and he swallowed, mouth achingly dry as he hurriedly looked from the body, eyes falling on Death instead.  So this was what it felt like - this was what Silas had kept from him.  Why had he wanted this?  For Silas. . .  To prove he was worth something.  That he could do what was asked.  So many reasons, none of them were quite fitting enough.  He could feel the heavy steel lower to hang at his side, fingers only gripping just enough to keep it from hitting the snow.  So this was the feeling of a god, surrounded by his weeping angels and tears of snow.

Author's Note

I don't intend to get this published, but I'd like to hear advice on how to improve my writing.

This was written a few years ago, for a Creative Writing class. Please ignore the not-so-great title. Thanks for reading.

PS. The formatting may be messed up; this site doesn't seem to like long dashes.

Reviews

[CatOfOrion]

As I told you before- you're brilliant when it comes to imagery and I'm fairly jealous of that talent of yours! ^^ Also, I don't know if there was another chapter, or if I skipped lines- but some parts I was just a little lost at. Like some information was missing. But that's all! It was an interesting read!