Bad Cow

by Andrew Hindle

She wasn’t degenerating yet. Canon had done some work on her before Barry had killed him, and Barry himself had taken up the task thereafter … but it would take constant work to keep her mind and body intact. And even this one had a greasy miasma of Demon around her, making it difficult for Gabriel to determine much about her at all.

  “Let’s get those teeth stowed safely in their overhead compartments,”15 he muttered, and reached out to touch the fangs.

  With a hiss, both from his fingertips and throat, he snatched his hand back and shook it. The touch of the girl’s teeth burned like fury. He examined the glossy black pads of his fingers, scowled at the foul-smelling blisters there, and waited for them to heal over and fade. It took a couple of seconds, but felt like a couple of hours. He wasn’t sure how thoroughly she’d been ingrained with the Demon’s essence, but it was certainly enough to do him serious damage over a prolonged period of contact.

  Well, he thought, I wasn’t planning on holding her hand through this. He stood up, looking at the thick curves of enamel that extended from the Vampire’s upper jaw. They hadn’t taken any sort of damage. So whatever this was, this Demonic patina, it wasn’t full-fledged binary opposition. It wasn’t mutual, as contact dissolution between Demon and Angel was. But at the same time, it wasn’t like the other effects Demons sometimes had on Vampires. It was some watered-down, bastardised equivalent, and it was all one way.

  This was going to complicate the process of helping her, but not necessarily make it impossible. If nothing else, as he’d told Barry’s friends, he could keep her stable and human until such time as she could die peacefully in her parents’ arms. It may end up being the best available outcome for her.

  Until then, he could get her to sleep without the necessity of touching her.

  He frowned.

  The air felt wrong. And it was more than just the swampy trails of Demon-stink swirling around the streets of Fremantle.

  He wasn’t standing on holy ground anymore. It wouldn’t vanish immediately – consecration tended to seep away rather than wink out, so he wouldn’t exactly drop at the next sunrise, but…

  “Fuck,” he muttered.

  “Not the first thing I expected to hear the Archangel Gabriel say.”

  He spun, launched himself forward and extended a hand in the same reactive movement, roaring across the shop and pulling a small and extremely open-minded tornado of crystal necklaces and incense sticks into the air in his wake. He barely had time to register that the Vampire standing in the doorway looked exactly like Canon before his hand came within a few millimetres of the thing’s silky hair and began to burn. He spun away with another hiss, smelling burning fur and necrotising flesh.

  He could have reduced the Vampire to ash without even touching it, maybe, but that required a certain amount of focus. The fog of Demon was too thick. This effect, unwelcome though it was after so many centuries, was somewhat familiar.

  “You poor stupid bastard,” he rasped, shaking his hand until it healed. “You have no idea what the Demons’ shadows do to near-mortal–”

  “Interesting,” the Vampire – Gabriel stopped trying to kid himself that Canon had a twin, obviously the Imago had been restored somehow – wasn’t listening to him. He was standing, hands half-raised to belatedly defend his head, and looking puzzled. “It’s almost as intense as the reaction the Demon caused, isn’t it? And you didn’t even touch me.”

  “How many times has it carried you through the dark?” Gabriel asked. “Where is it now? It may not be too late for you, but if–”

  “And yet, when I touched…” Canon slipped a hand into one pocket, looking thoughtful. “Interesting.”

  The Vampire stepped up to the Archangel, who willed himself not to move, and extended a hand. He laid it on Gabriel’s chest. Gabriel felt the cool press of fingers through his robe, through his fur, without pain … but when the Vampire slid his hand sideways and brushed Gabriel’s bare wrist, there was an immediate sizzling jolt and another waft of burning-hair-stink.

  Canon snatched his hand back and grimaced at it. Scorched, but not seriously burned.

  “Listen to me, Canon,” Gabriel said as steadily as he could.

  “I wonder what the rules are,” Canon murmured. “Or are there rules?”

  “There are always rules,” Gabriel growled. “We just don’t know them.”

  “Perhaps it is because he killed me,” the Vampire mused. “It’s as though … as though I grounded myself on him like a wire,” he tilted his head curiously. “You’ve known about me for a long time, haven’t you?” he asked.

  “Longer than I would have liked,” Gabriel replied sourly.

  “So why didn’t you kill me centuries ago?”

  Gabriel shrugged. “You’re generally harmless,” he said. “You’re just a businessman who lives longer and kills people more directly and in smaller numbers. You’re actually better for the ecosystem than a human businessman, because you think longer-term. I didn’t really think Barry would think you were worth going after.”

  “How flattering,” Canon said in a dry voice. “I suppose the appearance of our young friend in the shapeshifting cardigan changed the landscape somewhat.”

  “He got Barry’s robe,” Gabriel snapped, “and he’s using it as a fucking cardigan?”

  “Oh, like a royal blue bathrobe is any better.”

  Gabriel spun again, and saw an unassuming and utterly human-looking teenage boy standing in the back of the shop amidst the trashed merchandise. Even knowing he was there, Gabriel found he could barely register the kid’s presence. It was a deeply disturbing phenomenon, as though the shade and fog of the Demon pollution had momentarily found solid form.

  Well, that was exactly what it was. And it wasn’t momentary.

  Canon seemed to have no such difficulty. “Ah,” he said, “there you are. You were right, although I still think it was a bit of a gamble – the Archangel wasn’t able to touch me.”

  The kid was still looking at Gabriel, surly and defiant. He spread his arms and the plain set of clothing he was wearing shifted and darkened into a tuxedo, or at least an approximation thereof. “I’m getting better at controlling it,” he declared.

  “So,” Gabriel said, “you’re the new Demon.”

  “That’s right,” the kid replied with a smirk. “And you’re the old monkey.”

  “Just about the oldest,” Gabriel said easily. “Thank you for messing up the last bit of holy ground in the metropolitan area.”

  “Sorry,” the kid said insincerely. “Guess you’d better stay away from now on.”

  “Speaking of which,” Gabriel folded his arms carefully. “What does happen now?”

  “Now,” the Demon said, “Canon takes back his little French maid here, and we go back to the club. We think about letting all your little humans go, but we probably don’t. Not all of them. Canon was really pissed about the police, and I can’t say I blame him. We keep the Angel, call it insurance–”

  They know about the humans. Not bothering to listen any further, Gabriel launched himself at the door and soared into the air. No longer concerned with ascending out of sight, he arrowed directly towards the green-neon-hooped shape of Das Wampyr’s.

  He knew, even as he roared through the damp evening air towards the nightclub, that he was already too late. The Demon and the Vampire would already be there.

  THE SHEEPBREEZERS ATTEMPT TO

  CARRY OUT A PLAN

  The sound of the music dropped away surprisingly fast as they descended into the basement, and soon it was just a deep bass heartbeat above their heads as they picked their way through the shelves and the stacks of kegs.

  “Oh man,” Nutter said, voice shaking with mingled fear and awe. “Look at this booze.”

  “There’s a whole shelf of Drambuie,” Little Phil whispered.

  “I had no idea there were flavours of tequila,” Nutter said, pointing.

  “Right, we definitely have to come back here and do a tequila tasting,
” Phil declared.

  “Guys,” Seam hissed, “focus.”

  “Right, he’s right,” Little Phil said, visibly gathering himself and straightening his halo according to the dictates of some absurd reflex. “Focus. Anyway,” he went on as they turned into access passage Gabriel had mentioned, “this fuckin’ place is getting shut down, remember? Tonight. Now let’s–”

  From the pipes-and-wires-crowded passage, they turned and crowded into the room where – Seam was instantly and utterly certain – Tommo had died. And had not died well. There was a strong smell of bleach in the room, suggesting to Seam’s reeling and not exactly master-criminal mind that the actual evidence value had been eradicated, even if the visual effect was still overwhelming.

  “Fuck,” Nutter said in a high, strangled voice as they all stared at the dark, hideously graphic stains on the carpet, the carelessly half-wiped-away streaks on the walls. “Fuck, fuck, oh fuck.”

  “Nutter,” Phil said, and Seam was surprised at the steel in the man’s voice. It was easy to forget that, aside from running a number of rough country pubs in Queensland and the Northern Territory before moving west, Little Phil had served a tour in Vietnam in ’71 when he’d been little more than a kid, and he had a disciplined, if not precisely military side. He wasn’t Captain of the Sheepbreezers solely because of his heroic capacity for beer. Nutter snapped out of it and turned his wide eyes on Phil. “Go with Heathie and Walks,” Phil said, “get the cops we saw upstairs, and get them down here. Don’t let the bloody bouncers get in your way.”

  “I can’t believe the cops aren’t all over this already,” Heathie spoke up weakly.

  “They probably need a warrant to search,” Little Phil said. Seam had never seen such a cold look in his eyes as he surveyed the scene. “That’s probably what they’re busy with upstairs, with the owners. But if you report an actual crime scene, they’re allowed to come down.”

  “The bleach–” Seam said.

  “Probably just a first step to stripping the entire room and getting rid of all the evidence,” Phil said, “because they can’t seriously expect to convince anyone this is beetroot juice,” he gave Nutter a little push. “Just bloody go,” he turned to the others. “We’re gonna find Nails.”

  “Gabriel said there were thugs down there,” Seam said hesitantly as they headed back out of the room and continued along the passageway towards – it could only be assumed, since they hadn’t found any elsewhere – the stairs into the sub-basement.

  “Only a couple,” another of the Sheepbreezers – Gumnut – said, “and there’s five of us.”

  “And they’re not bloody thugs,” Little Phil said, and crouched down to pick something up off the floor. It was a plumbing wrench of some kind, and he unscrewed its lever extension and handed the slightly slenderer length of steel to Seam. “We’re thugs.”

  “I’d feel better if I had a spanner,” Gumnut remarked.

  “Wait,” Wally, another of the boys, said quickly, and trotted back out of the passageway in the direction Nutter had gone. He returned with a pair of crowbars. “They must’ve been unpacking crates with them,” he said, passing Gumnut one of the heavy tools. “I wanted to grab one when we passed by before. It’s not going to help us much if the guys down here have guns, but…”

  “Are we going to get our fingerprints on much more shit down here?” Seam asked a little plaintively.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake come on,” Phil growled, “security’s not going to sit around twiddling its thumbs forever, and we don’t even know where Gabriel put that guy. Drongo, stay near the back since you haven’t got a weapon.”

  “Shit, is that the deal?” Gumnut said. “He can have my crowbar.”

  They found a small metal staircase beyond an open door made of the same metal, and descended into a starkly fluorescent-lit concrete bunker.

  The room immediately at the base of the stairs was large and empty, although Seam thought it looked as though something had been dragged out of it and into the adjoining chamber. Scrape marks decorated the concrete floor. Through a doorless opening, they could hear voices.

  At least three voices, Seam guessed – apparently Gabriel’s assessment of ‘a couple of thugs’ had been a figure of speech not intended to be taken literally. However, from what he could hear, it seemed as though they were busy playing cards.

  Phil had evidently heard the same. He turned and whispered to the others as they stole down the stairs. “They’re playing poker or something. We can surprise them.”

  This, Seam thought as he watched Little Phil’s wings bob up and down on the vast sweat-darkened expanse of his shirt and the halo wobble brightly above his close-cropped hair, was probably a contender for Understatement of the Night.

  The three security guards, or mafia goons, or hired thugs or whatever they were, were sitting around a card table and arguing over a handful of ripped-up beer coasters they were apparently using as chips. Only one of them looked up as Little Phil strode into the room at what must have seemed like a horrifyingly swift pace for such a big guy. The goon lunged to his feet, his chair clattering to the floor behind him, and his two friends barely had time to turn before Phil sunk his wrench into the kidney of the one on the left, threw the wrench at the one on the right, then flung the table on top of him for good measure and grabbed the one who’d jumped to his feet.

  Before Seam, Gumnut, Drongo and Wally could do more than form up in the doorway and brace themselves for battle, Little Phil had grabbed the third goon in the time-honoured barman’s grip that combined armlock and wedgie, and assisted him neatly face-first into the concrete wall opposite.

  That guy went down and stayed down. The other two, one wheezing and clutching his side and the other swearing and disentangling himself bloody-nosed from the half-collapsed card table, began to get to their feet. Seam ran forward, heedless of the metal bar in his hand, and kicked the kidney-hit guy as hard as he could in the testicles. Kidney-hit went down a second time, his night going from bad to worse.

  Bloody-nose managed to get his hand on his belt, where it looked like he had a can of mace or a taser or something. By then the other three were there and Phil was back in the game, and Bloody-nose abruptly had an even worse night than Kidney-hit.

  Little Phil pulled back on Kidney-hit’s ears while he was kneeling groaning on the floor, and pushed his head sharply but judiciously forward to connect with the concrete just in case he might otherwise have felt the urge to get up. With all three goons spectacularly unconscious, the Sheepbreezers took a moment to look at one another in red-faced and adrenaline-loaded exultation before turning their attention on the object Kidney-hit, Bloody-nose and Wallface had been guarding.

  “Bloody Hell,” Little Phil whispered, stepping up to the cement block. Seam and the others joined him, and looked down at the doughy, washed-out face of their old mate where it stuck out of one end.

  “They encased him in concrete,” Gumnut said. Entirely unnecessarily, but Seam decided to allow it on the grounds that some things – like meteorite! – simply had to be said aloud. “They encased him in fucking concrete.”

  “Question is, do we leave him in it for the cops to find, or try busting him out of it?” Drongo asked.

  “Bust him out,” Seam, Phil and Wally all said at once.

  “Yeah,” Gumnut agreed, “but it’s concrete, and it must be a few days old by now. I don’t think even our crowbars will get in there.”

  Phil was looking thoughtful. “Guess it depends how tough Nails is,” he said, and chuckled briefly through his nose at the unintentional play on words. “I reckon if the five of us can get under one end of it – look, it’s still lying on a wood pallet underneath, we can get our fingers in there – we could lift it upright and drop it on its other face. Since there’s a body inside, it’s not going to be as tough as a solid block or a reinforced block. Or as heavy. It might split open if we push it over hard enough,” he spread his huge hands. “Might also just break Nails’s neck, t
hough,” he added.

  “I don’t think Nails’s neck breaks anymore,” Seam said. “Not for long, anyway. We all saw him heal up after he crashed. Let’s do it.”

  The Sheepbreezers crouched around one end of the block and worked their fingers into the gap between the wooden base and the concrete.

  “Lift with your legs,” Phil instructed.

  “I’d rather lift with yours,” Gumnut retorted.

  With a mass-groan, they heaved the block up to 45°, then as quickly as possible to vertical and then, with a push and a hasty step back, they let it fall on its former upper surface.

  There was an ear-splitting crash, and the slab broke into several segments. One toppled away entirely, revealing Barry’s left shoulder, upper arm, and the grey-clump-encrusted sweep of his left wing.

  “Right,” Phil said, and retrieved his wrench. “Now.”

  They’d levered and hammered away most of the cement from the now-face-down Angel when two more people appeared in the doorway.

  VINCE, PETE AND ALAN RECEIVE A HAND; CANON NOT SO MUCH

  Seam had happened to be looking at the door, expecting Nutter and Heathie and Walks and the cops to arrive – either that or the nightclub’s full semi-legal security force – so he saw the two young blokes appear.

  And they did appear. It was like something out of a magic show … or, like the sight of an Angel in flight, like something out of a rather cheesy movie. The human brain wasn’t equipped to deal with seeing people materialise out of nowhere, so it filled in the blanks and explained everything as best it could.

  Indeed, the very phrase out of nowhere was entirely appropriate. The two guys appeared out of a blot of absolute nothingness that only looked like a shadow because Seam had never seen anything remotely like it before. It wasn’t darkness, it wasn’t a cloud, it wasn’t anything. He interpreted it as a clot of shapeless black, and a moment later it blurred away and there were two guys standing there.

  One was a stylish and composed-looking bloke in an expensive suit, and every millimetre of him screamed Vampire. The other…