Sean E. Britten

I’ve always been inspired by music (I know, super original!) and music has always been a part of my writing. Way back in the days of burnt CDs, my mates and I used to put together CD mixtapes and I came up with the idea of a series of short stories based around pieces of music. Mixtape is all short stories sharing their titles with different songs and inspired, to various degrees, by their lyrics, artists, and vibe.

Currently Playing: The Tubes – Don’t Touch Me There

Following a breadcrumb trail of clues, Farmer has pursued her around the globe to Europe, to Rome, and to a tiny sidewalk cafe where he and his team of mercenaries are poised to strike. But as the tables turn, just who is hunting who?

======

“Target is approaching the grab site. Overwatch, confirm?”

Farmer swivelled, a rifle nested against his shoulder. Through the magnification of its scope, he studied the block. A quiet street corner in Rome, it had been occupied continuously for over a thousand years. Certainly the landscape had changed since the last time he was there. Electronics stores and ATMS and chemists with flashing, green, LED signs were stuffed into the weathered alcoves of buildings that had existed at the time of the gladiators. Funnily enough, it was the clothing that struck him as the most different compared to his memories of the place even though it wasn’t a neighbourhood popular with tourists. The stores and cafes remained sparsely populated that early in the morning.

A gaggle of nuns blocked the view through Farmer’s scope for a moment, crosshairs centered on the backs of their black wimples, but then he spotted her. She looked as if she’d just stepped off the runway at a Paris fashion show. Dressed all in white, a short skirt and sharp jacket, angles that armoured her against the mild morning. A rakish fedora worn at just the right angle. Dark sunglasses hid her eyes entirely. Not a hair was out of place. Her makeup was severe and looked like it had been done by a professional. Brilliantly red lips gave the nuns a small smile as they passed, the brim of her hat dipping. A white handbag, matched perfectly to her outfit, swung against her hip. Farmer was too far away to hear her, of course, but he could imagine the crisp snap of her matching heels on the pavement.

“Target confirmed,” Farmer replied through his radio. “Proceed with the snatch, over.”

Farmer kept watching through the scope of his rifle, reaching forward to adjust the magnification. The third-story apartment he’d rented under a false name gave him a commanding view of the cafe across the road as well as the surrounding streets. The cafe she routinely visited for an espresso and pastry according to reconnaissance, getting a table outside before the morning rush. He’d pushed a table against the windowsill and sat back from the window itself so a protruding barrel or the glint of sunlight on his scope wouldn’t give him away. He’d followed a series of clues, first around the world to Europe, and then to Italy and, finally, to Rome and the street below. He wasn’t going to lose her again that easily.

Farmer watched the target sit down at a favourite table outside the cafe. A waiter jumped into action, like he’d been waiting for her. A steaming espresso appeared in front of her as if by magic. They spoke briefly in Italian, with familiar smiles, before the waiter retreated. She used the opportunity to check her appearance in a compact mirror taken from her handbag. As if there was anything that could be improved upon. She was beautiful.

“Moving in,” the leader of the snatch and grab team said over Farmer’s radio, voice tight with tension.

A brown panel van screamed around the nearest corner, the name of a removalist company painted on the side. The van had been stolen in the early hours of that same morning and hadn’t yet been missed. For a moment, Farmer’s view of the woman was obscured but they pulled past her before screeching to a stop. Farmer watched her face for the barest hint of surprise.

A four-man team. One of them stayed at the wheel of the van while the other three hurled open the back doors. They all wore dark navy clothing and black vests. At a glance, a civilian might have mistaken them for some kind of tactical police unit. But the black balaclavas they wore weren’t standard issue and the men carried a motley assortment of weapons. One, the team leader, pointed a small, sleek MP5K, the second an older model Uzi, and the last man out of the van carried a shotgun. Mercenaries, Farmer had handpicked them himself. Three were ex-military, dishonorable discharges, one for the sexual assault of a superior officer and another for shipping drugs alongside the bodies of casualties. The fourth man was a former British cop, quietly moved on after multiple complaints about him needlessly assaulting suspects. Not good men but they should know what they were doing. They’d been instructed repeatedly not to underestimate their target.

The three mercs fanned out, weapons trained on the cafe’s outdoor seating. The waiter and a couple of other early patrons screamed and stumbled inside. Farmer couldn’t make out the words but he could hear the men shouting orders. A bunch of contradictory demands to confuse the target and give her no time to think as they swarmed her, snatched her by the arms and legs, and bundled her into the van. It would confuse the witnesses as well, making them misremember what they’d seen and heard.

Farmer watched as she shot to her feet, arms flailing. Her red lipstick described a perfect ‘O’ of shock. Adrenaline running high, through his scope Farmer saw it all with perfect clarity. Her surprise looked too polished to him, knowing what he knew. Stumbling, she fumbled with her handbag, the picture of a woman in a blind panic who’d snatched her bag without thinking. Her free hand swung up, over her head, in surrender.

“No, watch the purse! Watch the purse!” Farmer shouted into his radio.

Amidst her flailing, the white handbag swung forward. A dull olive cylinder about the size of an energy drink can spilled out of its mouth, a blue band around its middle, a knobby handle falling off its side. The mercenaries had no time to recognise it as it fell to the ground and bounced heavily. They were too distracted by the woman’s performance as they closed around her. In his sniper nest, Farmer surrendered to a wry smirk as he saw how it was all going to play out.

The flashbang grenade exploded. White phosphorus, it burned as bright as the sun at its core. The clap of sound crashed against the windows of the cafe and against the van, deafening everyone within its immediate radius. At the very last second, their target clapped her hands over her ears and turned away. Her eyes were no doubt scrunched shut behind her dark sunglasses. The mercenaries were not so prepared. For a moment, they were drowned out by a sphere of brilliant white light. When Farmer looked back, he could see the three men closest to the flashbang were reeling across the sidewalk. The man inside the van, half-deafened, half-blinded, whirled and beat against his door in confusion.

Farmer watched her recover, impossibly fast. While the mercs were dazed, she reached back inside her handbag. She didn’t bother to remove whatever she had in there. Probably a little .32, a Walther PPK. Blackened holes appeared in the skin of the white handbag as she fired through it. Little flashes of flame sparked inside the bag. She emptied the gun into the two closest men and knocked them to the ground.

The mercenary team leader staggered over the gutter and nearly tripped. MP5K raised, he blindly opened fire. Bullets stitched the awning above the cafe. She circled wide then ducked beneath the merc’s gun, handbag back on her shoulder. Straightening, she punched the mercenary in the throat. He gagged and she pulled the small submachine gun up then drove its barrel into the underside of his chin. A single shot cracked and the top of the merc’s balaclava ripped open. Blood soaked the wool as he fell, boneless, to the ground.

The woman in white kept the MP5K. The driver of the van kicked his door open, a pistol in one hand. She rounded the van itself and fired into the windshield. Bullets carved through the glass and cut the last man down, spilling him into the street. Gun empty, she tossed it aside.

Still smiling, Farmer watched her through the scope. He felt no sympathy for the mercenaries. If they’d been better, smarter, faster, they would be alive. She looked up and scanned the surrounding buildings. Her gaze, through her dark glasses, settled on his window and held his eyes for several heartbeats. Turning on her heels, she took off running back the way she’d originally come. Farmer followed her with his rifle. Even without removing her heels, she sprinted with incredible speed. A few curious and careful onlookers, having heard the flashbang and then the gunfire, poked their heads out of windows or doorways.

Farmer led her with the barrel of his rifle. Finger slowly increasing pressure on the trigger, he exhaled and fired. The clap of the rifle was muffled by the considerable suppressor screwed to the weapon’s barrel but it was far from quiet. The bullet whistled through open space, a distance of over two hundred yards, and ripped through her left calf muscle as she ran. Rags of flesh ripped free, jetting blood across the sidewalk. Based on the way her leg wobbled, he thought her shin bone might have been broken. She staggered for a moment, hopped, but then kicked off her heels and continued on at a reduced pace. Blood splashed the sidewalk behind her.

Farmer abandoned the rifle, leaving it across the table along with his binoculars, radio, and ammunition. Having anticipated the possibility of the snatch failing, he crossed the apartment along a preplanned route. Another door lay open to a narrow balcony. Without looking, he crossed the balcony and vaulted over its railing. His body was lithe and well muscled, like a jungle cat, decked in black. He twisted in midair, nimble as a gymnast. As he fell, he snatched the railing of the next balcony down. A half-second to brace then he dropped again and caught the next balcony as well. Springing outward, he spun to the ground. He hit it running, crossing the empty street, not sparing a look at the brown panel van, the bodies, the pall of white phosphorus smoke hanging over the cafe.

Farmer’s black jacket flapped around his chest. Under it, he wore a shoulder holster with a pistol and clips, and a military fighting knife. He sprinted down the same sidewalk she had used, ignoring more onlookers and a few shouted questions. Reaching the point where he had shot her, he spotted blood on the sidewalk. In spite of the leg injury, she was nowhere in sight. All she’d left behind were her white heels.

Like breadcrumbs, Farmer followed the blood down the street, down an alleyway, and across an open area with ruins, the shapeless remains of ancient foundations, fringing its edges. The blood pools shrank quickly. From puddles to streaks to sprinkles. The neighbourhoods transitioned. Most of the area was residential but in the distance he could see the upper reaches of Rome’s famous coliseum catching the morning light. Ranks of warehouses, decades old, rundown and dark, lay ahead. He followed the last of the blood drops to one of them. A doorway lay ajar, suspiciously inviting, nothing but shadows inside.

Farmer slipped the handgun from its leather and shouldered the door carefully aside. Nothing moved and there was no more sign of blood on the floor. The warehouse appeared abandoned. He moved down a corridor past a warren of empty offices, dust thick on the few bits of remaining furniture.

Reaching the end of the corridor, Farmer pushed aside an internal door that led into the main body of the warehouse. He felt the smallest bit of tension through the door, like a fish nibbling on a line, and recognised it as out of place. Without hesitation, Farmer threw himself sideways, tucking and rolling across the entry. At a glimpse, he spotted a curved plate of dark olive material trained on the doorway. The words ‘FRONT TOWARD ENEMY’ were imprinted across the plate.

There was a quiet click from a length of cord attached to the door he’d just used. The plate and words disintegrated into a hot flash and volcanic boom. Steel ball bearings tore through the door and doorway, blasting craters in the surrounding walls. Claymores had a tight funnel for an area of effect but ricochets sprung off every surface, creating a storm of shrieking, pinballing spheres. Several ripped through Farmer’s back and side. He felt them pierce and burn and sting. Echoes of the explosion bounced around the interior of the warehouse and faded, smoke and dust wafting, as he dragged himself forward and hauled himself back to his feet.

Laughter drifted from the rafters. Farmer recognised the tinkling notes of it. A set of stairs across the warehouse led to its upper story. He felt the claymore’s ball bearings cooling in his flesh as he started toward them. In the centre of the room were several well camouflaged pits. He didn’t know what purpose they had originally served, perhaps home to some sort of machinery, but they were large and square and arranged in a row. Painted canvas covered in loose dust had been used to cover the holes, no doubt too weak to support his weight. He skirted around them.

Another door on the lower level blew open as if via remote. Snarling and barking filled the warehouse as a pair of doberman pinschers rocketed out of the room, riled and bloodthirsty, eyes feral and ears flat. Claws skittered on the concrete floor. He aimed and fired, bullets skimming past the rapidly moving black blurs.

One of the dogs launched itself off the floor and slammed into Farmer’s arm. Teeth needled his left forearm and tore through the flesh like shears. He gritted his teeth to keep from crying out, blood spilling from the animal’s mouth as he swung it around. The second dog shot low and snapped at Farmer’s legs but struggled to get a firm grip through his pants.

Farmer moved the handgun toward the first dog’s ribs. She would be upset if he killed the dogs though. Remembering the pits covered in painted canvas, he swivelled. The doberman swung on his left arm. He hammered it down on top of the pit. The canvas and its supports snapped and tore. The dog’s teeth ripped free with a smatter of blood, nerves screaming white hot pain. It disappeared into darkness and hit the ground below with a whine. The second dog snapped at one of Farmer’s calves, taking a small chunk with it. He spun and kicked, catching the animal in its midsection. It was picked up and pitched into the same pit as the first. The two dogs snapped and whined, claws scraping on the sides of the pit, but they couldn’t escape.

Cupping his bleeding forearm against his side, Farmer continued toward the stairs. He was careful, probing each step to make sure they weren’t boobytrapped in some way. Blood trickled through his sleeve then slowed, dripping and drying on the stairs. Reaching the door at the top of the stairway, he found it locked. With his patience at a low ebb, he unloaded five rounds into the lock and handle then booted it inward.

Candlelight dominated the attic. Dozens, hundreds of candles lined benches along both walls of the long, narrow room. Mounds of wax mounted them into place. Farmer wondered whether she’d somehow lit them while she waited for him to arrive, if she kept them lit every morning in anticipation, or if she’d actually known that today would be the day he came for her. He checked the doorway for any tripwires or traps before committing himself then stepped inside. Blood stopped seeping through his left sleeve and he took his gun in both hands, pointed at the floor.

“Darling,” her voice curled out of the shadows at the far end of the room.

She had lost her white skirt and jacket, as well as her hat and sunglasses and damaged handbag. She’d exchanged them for a bronze breastplate, molded to the shape of her chest, and leather skirt that barely graced the tops of her thighs. Her exposed shoulders were broad for a woman, arms and legs well muscled. Lipstick was smeared across her mouth, her eyes hooded with dark eyeshadow, making her look wild, savage, feral. Farmer made a low and desperate sound in his throat. In her hands, she stroked the shaft of a brass trident.

“Bellona,” Farmer said, softly.

Farmer hesitated a moment too long. Bellona lashed out and hurled her trident like a spear. It crossed the room, hissing, and crashed into Farmer’s gun hand. His arm was carried back into the wall behind him. His wrist was caught between two of the prongs and momentarily trapped. The gun sprang out of his hand and fell beneath one of the tables hosting dozens of candles.

Farmer took hold of the trident and wrenched it loose. He considered going after the gun but dismissed it. When he looked at Bellona, he saw she had collected a second trident and a weighted net like a gladiator. She jerked her head toward one of the benches.

“There’s yours,” she said.

A short sword, a gladius, had been driven into the bench amidst the dripping candles. Farmer stripped off his jacket. The torn and bloody sleeve peeled away from his left arm. The punctures the dog had left were healing rapidly, although they looked scabby and gruesome.

Across the room, drying blood covered Bellona’s left ankle and foot but fresh pink skin covered the entry and exit wounds on her calf and shin. Another ten or twenty minutes, the scarring would be gone as well, the same as with the bite marks on his left arm. Farmer unstrapped his shoulder holster as well, with its ammo and knife, and tossed it aside. A black t-shirt clung to his chest and biceps. She waited until he crossed to the gladius and wrenched it free from the wood.

Throat warbling with a piercing cry, Bellona launched herself across the room at him. She led with the weighted net, sweeping and spinning it in an attempt to catch his newly acquired gladius. He deftly moved around it, slipping the sword free across the cords of the net. She lanced forward with the skinny trident and he had to skip backward to avoid her longer weapon.

“I see you’ve kept up your practice with swordplay,” Bellona said.

“I’ve had a great deal of time to wrestle with my own sword,” Farmer said.

The two of them danced across the attic. Low rafters crossed the ceiling. Floorboards squealed in protest under them. Sensing an opening, Farmer committed with a full-bodied swing that could have cleaved her breastplate in two. Bellona moved out of his path and the sword sliced through half a dozen candles behind her, scattering their hot wax and burning tips. The edge of his sword only clipped her upper arm, drawing a thin stream of blood. She whirled away, laughing.

“You must not want me badly enough,” Bellona taunted.

With a roar of effort, Farmer spun on her. He had to avoid getting tangled in her weighted net. The shaft of the trident then blocked his next swing. They crashed against one of the tables, upsetting more candles. One rolled and tumbled to the floor. Bellona caught it on the top of her bare foot and kicked it toward Farmer’s face. Hot wax splattered one of his eyes. Inside the range of her trident, he ignored the pain and used his height and size to monster forward. His gladius came up and the point slammed into the stomach of her armour. It pierced the brass and punched into her stomach. He buried it all the way to the hilt. Blood rushed from beneath her armour. The pointed tip of the gladius emerged from her back, alongside her spine.

“Darling,” Bellona moaned.

Bellona dropped the net and snatched her trident in both hands. The shaft broke soundlessly in two. Farmer realised she had unscrewed the head with a single twist. Holding the trident’s head in one hand, Bellona came around and rammed the prongs into the side of his chest. He felt the points scrape on his ribs then tunnel and tear. An arterial gush of blood spurted out of the wound.

“Got your heart, darling,” Bellona said.

“It was already yours,” Farmer replied.

Bellona dropped the shaft of her trident, grabbed his face in both hands, and jammed her mouth onto his. Farmer released the gladius and left it impaled through her midsection. Moments later, his hands were hunting across her body. They tore at her breastplate and skirt. She groaned into his mouth. He broke away and bit the side of her neck. She took a hold of the trident head and twisted, torquing it against his ribcage. The pain made him cry out. Fingers ran up the inside of her thigh until she pulled him short.

“Not there, not yet, darling,” Bellona said. “Anywhere but there.”

At the darker end of the attic, where Bellona had emerged, fur rugs had been piled across the bare floorboards. Wrapped around him, she led Farmer to the pile. He lay her down on top of them and took hold of the hilt of his gladius. Inch by inch, he withdrew it from her stomach. She grabbed hold of the head of her trident and, less gently, she yanked it out of his chest. Their blood mingled across the pelts. Cloth tore and leather snapped as they pulled at one another’s clothing. The injuries sealed themselves rapidly. The scars would fade but the blood patterning their skin remained sticky.

Their lovemaking lasted hours. Cruel to begin with, slow and painful, torturing pleasure out of pain. And then hungry, and then tender. By the time Bellona allowed him to caress her in that central place, he was savage with need. She was molten. It could not go on much longer after that. In the aftermath, they basked in one another’s arms in the candlelight, dried blood covering their skin.

“I was starting to wonder if you were ever coming,” Bellona said.

“Your clues didn’t make it easy,” Farmer replied.

“The cafe, you don’t remember it?”

“The one from this morning? Should I?”

“We visited it almost every day for three months in 1978. Of course, it looked different then. Everything looked different then.”

“My memories of Rome, they all bleed together.”

“I hope you haven’t forgotten this was where we first met, you solved that clue at least.”

“Of course, I remember the very moment I saw you for the first time. I knew in an instant you were special.”

“You are such a liar.”

Farmer had been fighting as a gladiator when Bellona found him. He fought conservatively, losing when he could get away with it, never committing himself fully unless a bout was to the death and his secret would be exposed if he didn’t win. He’d had to reject the wooden sword many times to avoid retirement, however. Days were spent training and fighting, nights the gladiators were often hired by Roman nobles as bed toys. There were worse ways to live. Bellona had been passing as a Roman noblewoman herself. She’d recognised his true nature by the fact he never scarred no matter how badly he was injured.

Shifting, Farmer felt a thread of pain in the side of his chest where she had stabbed him. Something badly damaged enough that it was slow to heal. After many, many lifetimes of pain, however, it barely captured his notice. Idly, he listened for sirens in case the Italian police found their little lovenest. That thought brought to mind his memory of the brown van and the dead mercenaries in the street. The blood on the sidewalk, the claymore, and the dogs.

“Do you think we go too far? With these little games?” Farmer asked.

“It keeps things exciting, doesn’t it?” Bellona said.

Life as an immortal could become stale, it was true. Farmer had lived centuries before meeting Bellona. He wasn’t sure when he’d been born but it had been long enough that he’d forgotten the name he’d been born with. ‘Farmer’ had been a title once, not a name. As far as he knew, he’d come into this world like everyone else but disease and injuries never afflicted him and, after a certain point, neither had age. But he’d struggled to find a purpose when everyone he ever knew, wives and lovers and children and villages, kept dying and he remained.

Meetings between immortals were rare given their apparent scarcity and need for secrecy. Since the two of them found one another they’d never been separated for too long but their little games helped keep things fresh. One of them disappearing to the other side of the world, the other forced to track and find them. To hunt and trap them.

Bellona’s nails trailed across Farmer’s chest. The last of the pain in his side left him. He felt fresh, regenerated, and strong.

“Ready to go again?” she asked.

“Give me a moment,” Farmer said. “I’m enjoying this.”

“Certainly. We’ve got nothing but time.”

======

Sean: Shoutout to a mate of mine, Brixey, who introduced me to the song that inspired this one! If you haven’t already, I’d strongly suggest you give it a listen, I think it’s probably the most obscure of the tracks I’ve picked for Mixtape. I found something about it genuinely a bit otherworldly which is how it ended up inspiring this one.

Loved the story Brixey told about hearing that track for the first time on the radio and then the next day everyone in school was talking about it but no one knew who had sung it. He and I work in radio and I think that sums up a lot of what I love about the medium. It’s ephemeral, temporary, but a shared experience.

Updated some songs on the Mixtape playlist earlier this week, so check it out if you want to know what’s coming up! There’s some fun ones there! For more updates, you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram.

Next Track: Johnny Cash – One Piece at a Time