Walking Shadows

by Narrelle M. Harris

"You really don't have to come," he said again as we waited for the tram. "I'd actually rather you didn't."

  "Look, Gary, I know it's not exactly prudent. But…" I struggled to articulate why I was so adamant. "I need to know what's going on," I said at last. "And I want to make sure you come back home afterwards."

  Gary's expression was disbelieving. I didn't know what else to say. I felt an urgency about keeping an eye on the situation that I couldn't explain further. Perhaps I was driven by the illusion that if I knew what was going on, I could control it. Mainly I knew that if I stayed at home waiting for him to come back, I'd be crazy with anxiety inside an hour.

  Two tram rides later we were at the door of an old brick house in the heart of the Jewish district in Elsternwick. A few steps led up to a small semi-circular landing which shielded the door from the street. The house curved out to the right of us in a large bay window. Curtains were pulled firmly across the row of lead lighted panes and narrow wooden frames.

  I don't know which struck me as more offensive - that this lovely part of town, with its synagogues, shabby-chic restaurants and European bakeries had vampires in its midst, or that it had Smith's gangster bolt-holes.

  Gary rapped smartly on the door. No answer. He knocked again. The door opened, mid-bang, and a good looking young man with dark hair, flushed olive skin and a nasty scowl was at the door, glaring at us. "Wrong house," he snapped, "Bugger off."

  "We're here with Mundy and Smith," I said, throwing a good deal of haughty confidence into it, like I'd seen in the movies. The young man appraised us then opened the door wide and stood back. He didn't leave enough room and my attempt at bravado came a cropper on having to brush against his hard torso as I squeezed past him.

  Gary was still outside. I glanced back.

  "You have to invite me in," Gary said to the young man, who grinned unpleasantly.

  "What happens if I don't?"

  "I don't come in, or I try and start bleeding from every pore, and either way you'll have to explain that to Mundy and Magdalene."

  A moment for deliberation, to show that he wasn't scared by the idea, then the guy said, "Be my guest, Mr Vampire. Come on in."

  Gary crossed the threshold without a shiver, and the doorman drew back so Gary wouldn't brush against him.

  "Where did that 'bleeding from every pore' thing come from?" I murmured as we walked straight down the corridor. Doors remained firmly closed on the rooms to the right of us.

  "Saw it at the cinema last year. It was repulsive," he whispered back, looking pleased with himself.

  "Couldn't you have just come in?"

  "Um. I don't think so. Not here. Besides, I don't want them to know I can do that. It's private."

  The corridor opened into a living room where a group was already waiting.

  I saw Mundy first, standing by an unused fireplace, looking lopsided with one arm propped against the mantle, the stump of the other hovering, with the sleeve of his shirt flapping at the end of it. He did not deign to look at me at all.

  On the far side of the fireplace, Magdalene stretched out comfortably on an overstuffed armchair. Her big, soft body and cherubic face were easily recognisable, though she had abandoned the French Boudoir look for the simple Melbourne dress uniform - black trousers, black flowing shirt, shimmery black jacket. And, of course, black boots. It made her look like a giant blowfly. She was laughing at something, perhaps the same something that had put that bitter expression on Mundy's face.

  Smith stood impassively beside her. He nodded at the doorman, who had come in behind us. When Smith's mobile phone rang, the sheer predictability of the ringtone being The Godfather theme tune made me think less of Mr Smith.

  "Yup." He listened for a few moments. "Bring him over." He hung up. "Another one on the way. We should get ready to move out." He nodded at the young man. "Get the others in here, Frank."

  Frank, our erstwhile doorman, left through an archway on the right hand wall of the lounge room. He returned with a half dozen bedraggled companions. Beryl was amongst them, her academic precision so undone that she looked like she needed ironing. I recognised one of the others from the club, though I didn't know his name, and the rest of them I'd never seen before.

  "Where are we going?" Gary asked.

  "Another safe house," Smith told him. "Covering our tracks."

  "I thought this was a meeting about what we're going to do."

  "So it is," Magdalene said. "We'll do that at the other place. You do not have to bring her." She didn't even have to look at me to make her meaning clear.

  "Did you bring her for us?" asked one of the strangers without bothering to suppress his zeal. He didn't step closer but he leaned avidly in my direction.

  Gary stepped between me and the hungry look.

  "Gary doesn't share, Victor," said Mundy drily over the top of the manoeuvring.

  "Maybe we should make him share." Victor's expression grew terrifyingly fervent.

  "Yes," drawled Mundy with a covetous look at my exposed throat, "perhaps we should."

  "Maybe we should leave." Gary reached blindly behind him for my hand and started pushing me corridor-wards.

  Our route was blocked by the return of Frank, who had slipped past us to the front door again. Behind him, two more people were joining the less than merry throng. The first was a tall, heavy-set man with a huge grin and cruel, laughing eyes that disturbed me more than Smith's cold fish look. I took him for another of the gangland fraternity.

  The other was a small, weedy bloke wearing a long navy blue apron over his jeans and shirt. His shock of unruly black hair contrasted with his chalky skin. His eyes were small, dark, and darted furtively over the place. Seeing Magdalene and Mundy did not seem to bring him any comfort. He flinched at the sight of the loose sleeve over Mundy's stump.

  "Paterson's here," Frank announced. "Time to go."

  "Found him at work, Mr Smith, stacking shelves, like you said," said the grinning guy.

  The weedy fellow ran a hand self-consciously over the logo of one of the big supermarket chains on the breast of his apron.

  "It hardly seems worth the effort now, does it Paterson?" said Magdalene with easy mockery. "I don't imagine you need to pay the rent any longer."

  "I got nowhere else to be," was Paterson's sulky reply.

  "Not since the hunters chased you out of your scruffy little room, at any rate." The grandmotherly touch that Magdalene usually displayed for the human members of the Gold Bug was utterly absent when dealing with her own kind. "You'll have to slum it from ghetto to ghetto like the rest of them now."

  Poor Paterson. The envisaged grandeur of immortality had been reduced to this: stacking supermarket shelves so he could pay to store his gear somewhere other than an abandoned railway shed or a derelict warehouse.

  However, another part of me thought it served Paterson right, and wondered how long he had been undead, and how many people he had killed before modern life had made that kind of thing inconvenient.

  Other questions were also bobbing up in my brain. The ones that were important - pertaining to why they'd brought Paterson here, and what they were planning to do next - were not uppermost, however. My own big question was: exactly how many kinds of stupid was I, that I was here in a nest of vampires, several of whom wanted to eat me?

  A sharp rap on the front door made everyone flinch. Smith nodded curtly at Frank, who reached to the back of his jeans to fetch a gun from the waistband. I took a step away from it and bumped into Gary.

  Frank crept towards the front door. I craned my neck to watch him as he peered through the peephole.

  "It's them, the kid and the older guy," he announced, calmly, crisply, like he waited for assassins to arrive all the time. He raised his gun.

  Smith and the cruelly cheerful guy also drew weapons. Smith gestured for everyone to move through the archway into a kitchen. Gary and I had no choice but to join the hushed exodus. Past the heads of the small crowd I saw a door at the rear of the
kitchen, between a sink and bench covered in peeling linoleum and an ancient, rust-stained fridge.

  "Were you followed?" Smith demanded of his colleague.

  "Couldn't see anyone," was the reply. "But you know these creepy bastards. The kid could have been up on the rooftops and I'd have missed him."

  "They're here though, aren't they?" said Paterson gruffly. "Must have followed us from the shop. How would they know where I worked, eh?"

  Magdalene paused in her progress to the back door to give Mundy a very pointed stare. Mundy scowled at her.

  "Your bloody address book," said Smith in disgust. "Christ."

  Mundy was subject to a range of accusatory glares. The blame-fest was truncated by the frontrunners' arrival at the deadlocked door. A dark and overgrown back yard was visible through the yellowed lace curtains above the sink.

  "Giorgio," Smith gestured with his gun. Giorgio slunk to the window to peer out of a crack in the curtain.

  Smith addressed the milling crowd. "Once you're out, split up. Meet at the new safe house tomorrow. You know where to go?"

  Home, was my answer. Oh, please, home; and I was taking Gary with me. The others could go wherever they damn well liked.

  Giorgio waved everyone back from the door, unlocked it and paused. Smith craned his neck as though listening for clues from Frank at the far end of the corridor.

  A loud crash from the front of the house galvanised Giorgio, who threw open the back door and shoved one of those waiting through the breach.

  What happened next was a blur. Frank came running, yelling, into the corridor, blood streaming down his face and his right arm hanging bent and useless at his side.

  "He's here," he started to shout as a blond boy sprang out of the room behind him onto his back. I recognised Abe instantly, and wondered how soon before he recognised me in turn.

  Abe was currently occupied with other matters. His flying leap knocked Frank to the floor with a nasty, loud crack. Frank shrieked and fell horribly silent. I flattened myself against the wall, trying to stay out of the way. Abe, crouched on Frank's spine, launched himself at Paterson, the last person in line for the back door. Smith raised his gun.

  I clapped my hands over my ears at the explosion that followed. A strange, hot smell filled the kitchen. Abe's momentum carried him past Paterson and into Smith, throwing both of them against the wall.

  Mundy had already shoved his way through the open door and into the darkness, determinedly jostling everyone else out of the way in the process. Giorgio turned and fired at Abe, who was getting to his feet again, easily sidestepping Smith's feeble swipe.

  Abe looked down at his own stomach and the two blackened holes in his shirt. There was no blood. Giorgio was staring at the wounds too, before he pulled the trigger again.

  The boy ignored the new hole on the right hand side of his shirt. He cocked his head, grinned crazily and said something I couldn't quite hear. He leapt, lightning-fast, wrapped a hand around Giorgio's gun hand, and squeezed. If my ears hadn't been ringing from the shots, I might have heard the bones break.

  Gary was pulling me towards the back door. I could see people fleeing into the night, caught a glimpse of others still in the kitchen scrambling to follow. It was like someone had turned on the lights and all the cockroaches were scurrying for cover.

  Suddenly, the door frame was filled with a new body.

  A familiar body.

  Evan.

  We stared at each other. Shocked. And then I noticed he wasn't as shocked as me. He looked injured and disappointed.

  And behind my own shock, a torrent of responses tumbled through my head. Horror at the realisation of what Evan was, and what he did. Desperation to explain to him. Rage. Loss.

  No, don't be this. I could have loved you. The way you made me feel.

  Beryl collided with me as she dived for the door, and my hip smashed painfully on the edge of the sink. Evan was forced back a step as Beryl pushed past.

  Gary had paused to help me, to shove me towards the door, and there was Evan again, something long, shining, wicked-looking in his hands. As we pushed towards the space, he lunged over my shoulder at Gary.

  Gary shifted behind me, with those lightning reflexes that always startled me. He jumped clear, dragging me along with him.

  Evan lunged after us, thrusting the thing in his hand towards Gary's head. It wasn't a stake. It was a syringe.

  The needle almost pierced Gary's cheek and he twisted violently sideways, crashing into the sink.

  "Out of the way, Lissa!" Evan shouted.

  I grabbed the dish rack from the sink and swung it at Evan's head. "Leave him alone!"

  Gary lurched upright again. Evan tried to push past me and from the corner of my eye I saw Abe coming for us.

  While Evan was trying not to jab me with the syringe, I seized his wrist and brought my knee up as hard as I could. I missed the crucial spot in his groin, but came close enough to distract him. Behind us, Gary made a grab for me.

  "Gary! Get the hell out of here!"

  He ignored me. Evan had taken a tight hold of me now, abandoning the needle in favour of stopping me from trying to knee him in the goolies again. Gary had seized Evan roughly by the shoulder.

  Kneeing him in the crotch was one thing, but I recoiled at the thought of watching Gary break Evan's shoulder just by squeezing it.

  "Gary, just go! Get out!"

  Abe hurled his thin, wiry body at Gary. Evan and I were wrenched one way, Gary and Abe the other. Gary ended up on his back with Abe crouched over him. Gary fought but Abe was clearly practiced at this. He punched ferociously, connecting with Gary's temple with a horrible thwack, and Gary scrabbled to get hold of Abe's wrists.

  I threw myself at Abe. Abe was strong but also small. My momentum as I crashed into him succeeded in knocking him awry. Gary scrambled up from the floor. He reached for me, but I had to keep Abe distracted. I punched and scratched at Abe's eyes like a maniac.

  "Get the fuck out of here!" I screamed at Gary. "It's not me they want to kill!"

  Abe's hands closed around my wrists as he gave me a look that put the lie to that last assertion. Then Evan was there, yelling "Let her go, Abe! Let her go!" and punching the boy's arms.

  And Gary, with a last wretched look at me, finally did what he was told and ran.

  Abe dropped my wrists and shoved me aside. He gave Evan one belligerent look then was on his feet and diving across the room - which was not as empty as I had supposed during our struggle.

  Smith had dragged Giorgio to his feet and had him half way down the corridor towards the front door. In the kitchen, Paterson had been cornered between the fridge and the equally rusty and ancient stove. Too much activity had thwarted any attempt to escape from the narrow space.

  Evan pushed me aside and I struck painfully against the cupboard handles below the sink. I saw him snatch up the dropped syringe and slam the back door shut as he passed it, following Abe across the room towards Paterson.

  Abe threw himself against Paterson, pressed him into the wall. I heard the front door open and Smith and Giorgio stumble down the stairs. I tried to work out which gave me the better chance. The front door was metres away down the corridor but, judging by the change in sound, still open. If I could get away and down the corridor fast enough I could be outside and running hell for leather towards the shopping strip and relative safety. The back door was right here but shut, and would take precious moments to open.

  My body hurt all over. I wanted to slip away. Be blank. Be marble. Be not here.

  I edged towards the back door.

  "Don't try it," Evan growled at me. Abe cast me an 'I'm coming for you next' look that immobilised me.

  "Hold him, Abe." Evan brought the syringe up and stabbed the needle into Paterson's chest, directly over his unbeating heart. Pressed the plunger. Paterson twisted like a demon and the needle snapped off at the root. Abe dropped the spent syringe, leaving Evan to retrieve and pocket it. Paterson struggled, more
feebly now. Abe seized him by the shoulders to keep him still while Evan watched.

  I didn't even think about intervening. Too late I tried to run for the front door. Abe released Paterson and casually swiped at me. The blow caught me in the ribs and knocked me into the sink again. A whimper escaped me. I faintly heard Evan ticking Abe off for it.

  Clutching my aching ribs, I stared at the chaos. At Frank, immobile on the floor with blood dribbling from his mouth and pooling under his head. At Paterson, still trapped between the two rusty appliances, no longer struggling but propped against the wall, regarding the needle protruding from his chest with a puzzled expression. At Abe and Evan watching him like scientists observing a lab rat.

  Another whimper rose in my throat and I swallowed it down. Drawing myself into a cautious, protective ball, I watched them, half hoping for a chance to escape, but mostly so I would see when they decided to came for me. Then I tried not to hyperventilate.

  Evan stepped around me to rummage through the drawers. He withdrew a carving knife.

  "Does he need another dose?" he asked Abe. Abe shook his head. Paterson attempted to run, and Abe cuffed him brutally on the side of the head. Paterson staggered.

  "Ready?" Evan handed Abe the knife, handle first. Abe took it, tested its weight in his hand.

  Abe seized Paterson by the shoulder, turned him, stabbed him through the heart, withdrew the blade, all in a smooth and sudden moment. Paterson wobbled on his feet. Sagged.

  Abe took Paterson by the back of the neck, held him upright by his hair, and stabbed again, leaving the knife in the dead heart this time. He let go and Paterson dropped like a stone. Abe knelt over him, took the knife handle and began working it back and forth, making the wound larger.

  Paterson's eyes were wide and devoid of any other reaction. Please don't be feeling that, I thought. Be dead, be dead.

  When Abe was satisfied with the hole he'd made, he took the knife out. He fished in the hole with his fingers to pull out the broken needle, which he handed to Evan. Then he shoved his hand into the cavity. Moments later Abe wrenched his fist out of Paterson's chest, the vampire's withered heart trapped in his hand.