Walking Shadows

by Narrelle M. Harris

  Another album below that showed Gary as a young man, sitting beside his father on a hard bench, both of them dozing, propped up against each other. Gary's hand was curled loosely around a pair of spectacles. The bench had an institutional look to it, and I was certain that this picture had been taken at a hospital.

  Gary looked much like he did now, though more drawn, with dark circles under his eyes. He looked like he really needed the nap. I wondered whether his mother had taken that photograph, and what had driven her to capture this sad, restful moment when, I felt sure, Gary was fighting to find a way to survive his tumour, and failing. Until Gunther found him.

  I dragged my eyes away from the photograph to another album, its pages open on happier memories. Older Gary, but before he got sick. He was much heavier in this picture, and it surprised me to realise that, although on the plump side now, he would certainly have lost weight before halting his decline with undeath.

  This Gary, wearing the unflattering glasses, was holding up a very fine watch in its display box. The wrapping paper was still on his lap. His face bore the happiest smile, with a hint of bashfulness that was incredibly endearing. His eyes were laughing. It was heartbreaking.

  Where are you, you dumbass geekvamp?

  "Hi, Lissa. Want a cuppa?"

  I think I screamed a little. I looked around to see Gary wincing at the noise.

  Gary, calm and every-day and oh-thank-God, thank God, not dead. At least, no more than usual. In a surge of relief, I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed tight. I let him go and allowed irritation to cover up my emotion and embarrassment.

  "Shit! Gary! You frightened the life out of me."

  "I've been in the shed." He lifted up a small, cobweb-coated suitcase he was carrying as proof. I realised that Gary too was liberally festooned with dust and cobwebs.

  "You've got to be more careful. I could have been anyone!"

  "I knew it was you. I heard you. And I could smell you as I came in the back door."

  "You smelled me?"

  He put the suitcase on the floor and brushed the muck off his clothes. "Yeah."

  "I smell."

  "Not bad," he clarified, "You just smell like you."

  "Does being a vampire ever gross you out?"

  He dusted his hands together, slapping off cobwebs. "You smell all right," he insisted. "Not like some people. Mostly you smell like shampoo and books, and sometimes a little bit like your dog. Most of the time, anyway."

  He paused, suffused with a sense of not knowing where to look, no doubt recalling, as I did, the one time I had gone to the pictures with him during my monthly cycle. After 10 minutes of looking puzzled he finally asked if I'd cut myself on something, and I, all unthinking, said no, why? And he said he could smell blood. And then I'd blushed and seized up and mumbled something about 'female things', and then it was his turn to go all stuffed-frog with mortification. After all, he'd lived with his mum all those years before menopause set in, so he must have had a faint clue rattling around his head. Anyway, since then, there were a couple of days a month I never saw him.

  "Um. Tea." Gary put the kettle on and his eyes shifted to the stack of albums in the dining room. "Did you look at those?"

  "One or two on the top," I admitted, eager for a change of topic, "I hope you don't mind. They were open."

  He came out to join me, pulled the top one off the pile, opened it, and turned it to show me right-way-up.

  "That's me with my parents. 1960. I'd just turned 16. I had to repeat school that year. It was hell. I was bored enough the first time round. Mum was the one who pointed out that I found the stuff I liked too easy, and I just didn't bother with the stuff I didn't like."

  "You look like you got on with them."

  "Mostly. Though I think I was a bit of a disappointment to Dad."

  "It was probably more complicated than you think," I said, "Parents are funny things."

  "You're right, there." A stray cobweb was caught in his hair so I plucked it away and wiped it off on my jeans. He rubbed his fingers vigorously over his scalp and then raked them down the fringe, pulling it back into place. "What did you come around for, anyway?"

  "You didn't answer when I emailed you last night."

  "I haven't had the computer on."

  "All day?"

  "I've been doing stuff."

  "What have you been doing that took all day?"

  "I don't have the computer on every day, you know."

  That concept was unfathomable to me. "But what took so long?"

  "Figuring out what to take." He indicated the grimy suitcase. "To the safe house. If I decided to go. Then I had to find a bag."

  "That's what I was emailing about. I had a different idea. I don't trust those people."

  "I'd rather stay home," he grumbled. "Anyway, where else am I supposed to go?"

  "I have a flat."

  "What's that got to do with it?"

  "I spoke to Kate about it."

  "About what?"

  Emotional roller-coastering made me testy. "Jeez, Gary, I'm trying very hard not to actually issue an invitation, all right? I know you prefer me not to. You have to meet me halfway on the clue front, however, or I'm going to have to be explicit."

  "Oh!" Hark, the sound of the penny dropping. "Ah. But. Kate."

  "Is fine with it." Well. Sort of.

  "What about your dog?"

  "Anthony's taking him for a few days."

  "Will that be long enough?"

  "I don't know. We'll worry about that in a few days, eh?"

  "If you're sure."

  "Very sure. Though you'd better bring some DVDs to watch. I've got musicals, mostly, and I don't think you're up to seven straight days of show tunes."

  The first things he threw into his suitcase were a handful of movies still in their wrappers, followed by a half-filled notepad. I made tea and pretended not to watch the other things he packed. A second pair of jeans, a couple of his ubiquitous brightly coloured shirts and a T-shirt. A handful of socks and jocks. A toothbrush. I remembered his telling me he still used toothpaste sometimes so he could actually taste something now and then. His library books went on top, and finally he shoved a photo frame face-down among the clothes. After a moment's consideration, he shoved in some more films, an engineering textbook covered in pencilled notes and one of the photo albums, then he closed the lid.

  "That's it? That's what took you all day to figure out?"

  "Mostly I was working out what I'd want if they end up burning my place down whether or not I'm here." And in the end he'd gone for a change of clothes, a book representing his thwarted ambitions and some family photos. When it came down to it, I would have made similar choices.

  "Do you want me to call a taxi for the station?"

  "What for?" Gary lifted the bag as though it was still empty.

  "No reason." I rummaged in my bag for my phone to check the time. "I have to get back, though. I'm meeting someone later tonight."

  "Let me just lock up the back."

  The suitcase wasn't very heavy so I lugged it to the front door, and opened it to wait - and came face-to-lurking-profile with Abe. The boy's white-blond hair and too-pale skin were instantly recognisable as he attempted to peer through a crack in the living room's cabinet-blocked window.

  Not a boy, I reminded myself.

  He looked at me as I stood at the door, squinting in the fading evening light. I slammed the door shut behind me and hoped vehemently that Gary would overhear us and stay put.

  Abe tipped his head to one side as he regarded me critically. "I have seen you before," he said.

  "Yes," I agreed. I was wondering how many people he'd killed in his existence.

  His eyes narrowed. "A vampire lives here."

  "Not anymore."

  "The name was written in the book."

  "He's dead now." Please, Gary, please stay silent and inside.

  "He went that whole I'm-too-bored-to-go-on route," I elaborated. "You kn
ow how that goes, don't you?"

  Abe's expression flickered, like he'd heard of such things but didn't give it credence.

  I hefted the suitcase higher to show him. "I'm going through the house for the estate. I've got a few things here. The auctioneers are coming through later in the week.

  He wrinkled his delicate little nose at me and sniffed thoughtfully.

  "I'm not a vampire," I said.

  "I know. I can smell you."

  Great. Again with the smelling.

  "I want to go inside." He sounded petulant.

  "You could if you wanted to," I suggested curtly.

  He glared at me. "I cannot. An invitation must be made."

  "That's too bad, then."

  His expression became crafty. "Is it your house?"

  "Yes. It is. Mr Hooper left it to me in his will. I'm planning to live here with my sister, my dog and a flame thrower. In case you're thinking of coming back."

  My bravado failed to impress him in any way that I could tell. After a moment he glanced to either side of him then jumped straight up. You'd think I'd be used to these moves by now, but I gasped and strained to see the edge of the roof where he had come to rest. I was trying to decide if it was more or less unsettling than when Gary did it - Abe was small and lithe and had a natural grace that was weirder and less human than Gary's own ungainly style.

  Abe raised an arm and waved down the hill. He glanced down at me, walked along the edge of the guttering and, at the corner of the house, leapt flowingly back to earth. In a few steps he had crossed the yard, made the smaller jump over the low front fence and ran lightly towards the main road.

  A dark blue sedan with tinted windows pulled up at the curb beside him. Abe got inside and the driver - Abe's mysterious partner - made a swift U-turn.

  The car was well out of sight before I drew a shuddering breath.

  "Is he gone?"

  I nearly choked on another startled shriek. "Stop doing that!"

  Gary, standing at the open door, was not only unapologetic, I think he was amused. "I don't usually scare people, you know."

  I scowled at him. "He's gone."

  "Maybe he won't come back."

  "I still don't think it's safe to stay here."

  Gary sighed. "Probably not." With a palpable air of regret, Gary pulled the front door closed and locked it.

  "How do you think of that stuff to say, anyway?" he asked as we walked along the highway towards the train station, "All that about the will and the auctioneers?"

  "It's a gift," I said, "Like good skin and the ability to dance."

  Gary grimaced at that.

  "You've got gifts too," I said.

  "Yeah. The ability to scare people without even trying, by saying hello."

  "My brother Paul used to do that to Mum all the time. He'd sneak up on her while she was hanging out the washing, or dusting. She dropped a vase once. She was so mad, but he kept laughing and she ended up laughing her head off too. Paul always used to get away with anything." Where on earth had that memory come from? He'd been young, I remembered, about five or six years old.

  "Come on," I picked up speed, "we'd better get going. I have a date tonight."

  CHAPTER 16

  Kate greeted us at the door with folded arms and a forbidding expression. Gary hesitated in the corridor. Kate glared at him. He stared back at her briefly, then, outstared, dropped his gaze and nervously shuffled his feet.

  "I don't like you," she said, abandoning manners in favour of clarity.

  Gary threw a wounded look at me.

  "You're only here because Lissa asked me to let you stay. If you dare lay your hands on her, I will make you suffer."

  Gary stopped shuffling. "Why on earth would I hurt Lissa?"

  There wasn't much to say in the face of such obvious mystification, so Kate opted for scowling. "I want to make it clear, I'm not ever going to be the one to invite you in here."

  "Okay." Another glance at me. I shrugged, and very deliberately did not even gesture welcome towards the door. So he went ahead as he always did and simply stepped across the threshold with his suitcase.

  He shivered violently, dropping the suitcase, and Kate stared.

  "How did you do that?" she demanded with a tremor.

  "I don't know," said Gary, with the greatest concentration. Speaking seemed difficult.

  "Does it hurt?" I asked.

  "No. Yes. No. Kind of. That was harder than usual."

  "Don't vampires need an invitation?" Kate said, a quake of horror underneath the question.

  "Theoretically," I said, belatedly realising I should have prepared her for this.

  "Can, could Mum?"

  "No," I reassured her vehemently. "It takes a certain way of thinking, doesn't it Gary?"

  He nodded vaguely, hedging his bets, or perhaps still recovering from the effects of stepping into a home where one of the occupants clearly did not want him there.

  "Why don't we put your stuff in my room for now?"

  "Um. Yeah. Thanks." Gary flexed his hands a few times then gave Kate a look that was half rueful, half defiant. "Thanks for letting me stay, I guess."

  As I hauled the suitcase to my room I heard frantic claws scrabbling at the bathroom door, accompanied by low growls.

  "I thought you said Anthony would take Oscar."

  "He's on his way over now," said Kate, not sounding in the least apologetic, "He should be here any minute."

  The buzzer sounded as I slotted the grimy suitcase into a space at the end of the bed. The next moment, a full-throated growl erupted from the living room.

  "Oscar! No, bad dog." Which would have been more effective if Kate's tone hadn't been so deadpan and mild.

  As I came out of the bedroom, a small, furry body hurtled out of the bathroom and across the living room. Oscar sank his teeth into Gary's calf. Oscar whined, let go briefly and stretched his jaw like he was trying to spit something out, but almost instantly bit Gary's leg again. The high-pitched snarls continued through the denim and flesh.

  Gary stared down at Oscar savaging his leg and stood perfectly still. He gave me a long-suffering look. I was torn between feeling bad for Gary at the indignity of it all, and concerned for Oscar. I knew just how bad vampires tasted. In fact, this wasn't the first vampire he'd bitten, which only goes to show what a fearless guard dog he is.

  The sight of a tiny tan Maltese/Shihtzu cross, a veritable muppet of a dog, ferociously attacking Gary was increasingly and disconcertingly alarming. "Oscar, no!" I delivered it with a lot more conviction than Kate. Oscar was having none of it.

  "Oscar!" My dog's eyes rolled plaintively in my direction, but he didn't let go or stop snarling.

  "Drop!" I made the firm, palm down gesture we'd learned at Puppy Obedience School, "Drop, Oscar!"

  Gary arched one what-the-hell-is-that? eyebrow and I gave it up, instead bending to prise Oscar's jaws apart. My dog struggled ferociously, whining, but I managed to hang on to him.

  Kate, standing by the open door, had that unrepentant, that-was-accidentally-on-purpose expression I remembered from fights in our childhood. The start of a blazing row was on the sharp edge of my tongue when I realised that Anthony was at the door. He regarded Gary with a look of awe.

  "Man," he said, "that must have hurt."

  "A bit," Gary admitted, disgruntled.

  "What the hell did you do to that poor dog? He's usually a sweetie." I could see Anthony was realising that something was odd about Gary and not quite clicking what it was. "Vampire" is not usually the first conclusion people reach. On the other hand, "weirdo" they can get to very rapidly.

  Kate grabbed Oscar from my arms and shoved him at Anthony. Anthony would very much have liked to not be holding five kilos of small, angry dog, but when Oscar lunged Gary-wards, he tightened his grip.

  "I'd better take him to the car."

  "I'll be right down with his stuff," said Kate briskly.

  "You sure?" Anthony cast a dubious glance at
Gary, his agitation translating into protectiveness.

  "Won't be a sec," she replied curtly, then smiled to reassure him. Anthony wasn't convinced, but he nodded a friendly goodbye to me, gave Gary a stern warning glare and was gone again.

  Kate grabbed a canvas bag from the bench top - filled, no doubt, with Oscar's bowls, food, treats and toys - and marched out before I could call her on being a passive-aggressive bitch. I banged the door closed behind her and took several deep, calming breaths.

  "She's not normally like that."

  Gary had bent to poke at the holes in his jeans. "Hmm." He stood up. "Are you sure this is a good idea?"

  "Kate needs a bit of time to get used to it, that's all. She doesn't know you like I do."

  He remained, with good grounds, unconvinced. "I'm dead, Lissa, not stupid. She doesn't like me. That's sort of okay. I'm used to people not liking me. I'm not used to hanging around and putting up with it."

  "I'll talk to her."

  "I think I'd better go."

  "No!" I clutched his sleeve.

  Gary regarded me with puzzled curiosity. "There's the safe house where everyone else is going."

  "I don't trust them. I think it's safer here. Mundy didn't have this address in that damned book of his, and even if he did, no-one can get in uninvited, and I don't think those hunters will burn down a whole apartment block just to get to you." I was starting to sound frantic and militant, even to myself.

  The puzzled expression intensified. "Maybe. I'm going to the meeting there tomorrow anyway."

  "What the hell for?"

  "In case they've got some idea of what's going on. I want to know what they know."

  That I could understand. "Fine. Then I'm coming with you."

  "You don't have to."

  "I am coming with you. And in the meantime you're staying here."

  "Why do you want me to stay so much?"

  "Because everybody dies," I blurted out. The words hung there for a second. "Everyone I care about dies," I repeated at last, "And I'm sick of it. And I figure if I keep you where I can see you, maybe this time I can stop it."