Title: Don't let it Breathe in your Face Summary: Bodie could feel Death's tainted breath against his chilled fleshed. Never before had it come this close. Main Characters: Bodie. Secondary Characters: Cowley and Doyle. Challenge: Written for the 'Weekly Obbo Challenge No.5(A)' over at the teaandswissroll community. Prompt: ShaveDisclaimers: Characters created and owned by Brian Clemens, Avengers Mk1 Productions and London Weekend Television. Title snagged from Michael Connelly's book 'Crime Beat'. .
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A rush of fresh air through a broken window was all the warning Bodie had. His voice, hoarse from misuse, cracked painfully when he yelled out in surprise and fear, not for his own life but for the person left behind. Splattered across Kennington Lane, Bodie wasn't going to be much help to his partner who would be left alone to deal with a six foot six Neanderthal named Sebastian.
His left shoulder screamed, glass from the broken window cutting deep into flesh and muscle as he passed through it. A cold gust of wind rattled through his short hair, chilling not only his flesh but his heart. His eyes widened at the sight below him; pavement, cold and hard, ready to embrace him when his body hit . . . slammed into it at a speed . . . George Cowley standing beside his car, watching Bodie's death play out as though it were a scene in a badly dubbed movie.
Instinct, a feral need to survive, had Bodie reaching, his fingers stretching toward anything that would and could save him. Something he could use to pull himself back into the flat, to help his friend because surely, Sebastian would be using Doyle as a convenient punching bag at this very moment, but his fingers found nothing but empty air.
Bodie was falling, his death was imminent. It was staring him in the face, laughing at him, taunting him; Death could be an ugly thing with a morbid sense of humour but Bodie wasn't laughing, not today, never again. What he wouldn't give for a dirty joke right now.
Impending death came to a sudden and painful stop when a sharp ragged piece of glass snagged on his boot, cutting through expensive leather and flesh and scraping painfully against bone. Bodie's chest slammed against the side of the building, the air rushing from his lungs like air from a deflating balloon. When his forehead bounced off the wall darkness encroached on his vision and bright lights flashed against the inside of closed eyelids, a light show that would rival any and all fireworks displays.
Long, elongated seconds passed as Bodie waited; for oblivion, for rescue, for death. Nothing happened and he realised with sudden clarity that nothing was going to happen. He was going to hang here, his left foot caught on a piece of glass, until cobwebs formed in every little nook and cranny; Death's wicked humour at play
He could feel the wind rushing past his ears and the nausea rolling through his stomach. The pain was like nothing he'd ever felt before, burning through him like a cold winter's fire. And in his small world of pain and fear, Bodie thought he could hear Death calling out to him, its breath cold against his skin.
Bodie opened his eyes and below him he could see Cowley running towards the building, disappearing through an open doorway. Good luck to him; the elevator was broken and they were on the seventh floor. Again, Death and its sick sense of humour.
The voice called to him again, a voice worse than Death itself; the voice of George Cowley, his Scottish accent thick with emotion.
"3-7!"
Bodie swallowed, the bile burning against his throat on the way back down, and said, "I'm here." His voice sounded as broken as his body felt.
"3-7! Damnit, Bodie, answer me!"
"Blasphemy, Sir," said Bodie. "So unlike you."
"Lad, if you can hear me, say something."
Bodie didn't have the strength or the courage to reach into a jacket hanging past his head for his radio. At times George Cowley claimed to have a direct line to God. Well, he could damn well use it now. God as a middle man relaying words and emotions. Bodie almost laughed.
"3-7!"
"I could murder a beer right now," said Bodie.
Like finger nails on a chalk board, the glass scraped against bone as his foot shifted. He didn't have long, any moment now that piece of glass was going to break and the growing crowd below would see a show they would never forget. He was hanging onto life by a thread, a frail piece of worn leather and battered flesh.
Bodie could feel Death's tainted breath as it breathed against his chilled flesh. Never before had it come this close. Oh he'd been shot, stabbed, beaten and many a bullet had come within a hair's breath of taking his life but never had it been so close.
And then the thread broke.
There was no warning as the glass tore through his flesh and then his favourite boot, only the realisation that he was falling for the second time. Death was waiting for him.
A single gunshot.
A scream, the voice not his own.
Fingers seized his left ankle, pulling, lifting him upward, away from the pavement below and away from death. Bodie attempted to help, but his limbs refused to move, too heavy with adrenaline, fear and pain. Hands moved along his body, gripping his clothes, pulling him up and back through the window where he collapsed into an untidy grateful heap.
"You okay?" asked Doyle.
When his worried partner's face filled his vision, Bodie nodded his thanks. It was all that was needed. "Thought I was going to be someone's Sunday lunch," said Bodie.
"I don't think anyone would mistake you for road kill."
"Sebastian?"
Doyle nodded toward the other side of the room. "Deader than your last date."
"But the Cow said he wanted him alive," said Bodie, frowning when Doyle subtly indicated that there was someone else in the room.
Bodie lifted his head, grimacing and clenching his teeth against the pain. There stood George Cowley, out of breath and massaging his bad knee.
"What do you think you were doing, 3-7?" Cowley snapped. "Leaving Doyle to handle the situation on his own."
Bodie could hear the underlying concern in the old man's voice. "Doctor said I needed more fresh air, Sir."
The End