Walking Shadows

by Narrelle M. Harris

  "Repent," he said. Abe squeezed his fist, mashing the heart into leathery pieces. He wiped his hand clean on Paterson's supermarket smock.

  I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. This is what they had intended for Gary. This is what Evan wanted to do to my friend. And what, I could barely bring myself to think, did they intend to do with me?

  Abe cocked his head, listening. "Sirens."

  Evan nodded. He crouched over Paterson's sunken body. From another pocket he took a flask and emptied the contents into the hole where the heart used to be. He lit a match and dropped it in.

  Abe quelled me with a glance when I started to move. He walked over to me, and I curled into myself, trying to make myself smaller. I didn't know what else to do.

  "Don't hurt her," said Evan quickly, "We need her."

  "Why?"

  "She was at Hooper's place. Now here. She knows things we need to know."

  Evan stood beside me, his body radiating heat from his exertions. My teeth started to chatter. I could smell the smoke from the fire in Paterson's body, and I couldn't bear to open my eyes to it, so I kept them screwed shut.

  "Carefully," said Evan. "There's no need to hurt her."

  Another whimper bubbled inside me, and then it died, burnt up in a rising tide of outrage and fury.

  Bastards. Contemptible, cowardly, utter bastards. Hunting people down for slaughter like they didn't matter, not caring who they hurt or killed on the way. I didn't know Paterson, or Frank. Maybe they were both killers too. But maybe Frank, like poor dead Jack, had been nice to his mother. Or to cats. Maybe Paterson only drank from idiot volunteers and paid his rent on time and tried to hang on to whatever he'd wanted immortality for in the first place.

  Whatever they deserved, this cold-blooded death was not it. Murder did not justify murder.

  I knew Gary didn't deserve it.

  I knew I didn't deserve it.

  Abe's hands closed over my arms to raise me up, and I fought like the devil. I kicked, scratched, punched. When that had no effect, I swore violently, still struggling, and tried to bite him. My teeth snapped painfully shut on air.

  A ringing slap to the side of my head sent me sprawling and shut me up for a second.

  "Abe, don't!" Evan spoke sharply to the boy, then tried a kinder tone on me. "Calm down, Lissa. It'll be easier."

  Like I wanted to make it easier for the prick. From the floor, I scrabbled towards the living room, thinking I might be able to find a poker in the fireplace to use as a weapon. I could still smell Paterson burning, the stench mingled now with the smell of burning linoleum.

  A hand closed around the back of my shirt and hauled me, choking, to my feet. I twisted frantically in Abe's grip, earning myself another clout, and a protest from Evan. The world spun. I felt a tug on my shirt and heard cloth tear. Then the feel of the ragged strip of cloth being wrapped around my wrists, binding them.

  Another ripping sound, and a wad of cloth was stuffed into my mouth, another strip tied over the top of it around my head.

  I pushed at it with my tongue, terrified of suffocating. I started to fight again.

  Evan grabbed me by the chin and glared into my eyes. His green eyes, that I had thought so beautiful, were cold and angry. They made me afraid.

  "Please, Lissa, don't fight. You are making this so much harder than it has to be," he said.

  My booted feet lashed out and caught his shin with a satisfying clunk of leather on bone. He hopped away, swearing, yelling for Abe to get me the hell out of the house, and I was dragged out into the night.

  CHAPTER 18

  Sirens in the distance came closer. I couldn't tell if they were for the police or the fire brigade. The sight of a red glow through the kitchen window indicated both would be needed before long.

  Abe slung me over his shoulder. I kicked and squirmed, earning myself another cuff behind the ear that, this time, shut me up properly. I had to concentrate on not throwing up. With the gag in it would surely kill me. Only rock stars choke to death on their own vomit, I told myself furiously; not librarians.

  "Stop doing that," Evan told him harshly. How nice to know he didn't like his - I suppose it must be 'cousin' - hitting me. "I'll meet you at the house."

  A lurch and Abe was off, leaping effortlessly over fences and dashing across darkened back yards. Dogs barked wildly in our wake, though none ever got close enough to bite the little prick. I couldn't see much, and what I could see didn't make sense from my upside-down perspective. Abe was so fast that if anyone saw us, we were gone before they could work out what we were.

  I wished I were unconscious so I could escape the dizzying motion, the nausea and the dread. Sometimes I clung to Abe's clothes with my bound hands, afraid of falling. Sometimes he put me down. I couldn't even try to run. Before I could get my legs to work, he'd drag me to my feet again, throw me over his shoulder like a sack of rice. Nothing else was clear, not direction or time.

  Finally, he put me down and didn't pick me up again, and I sat there, a knotted up ball of rage and terror.

  Gary had finally listened to me and run. I was glad. Happy. Terrified. Furious that he'd taken off and left me there. I wanted him with me, so I wouldn't be going through this all on my own.

  The thought of Kate made me crumple further in on myself, my anger flagging with the terrible knowledge that we'd been fighting the last time I saw her. About vampires. So stupid. I hadn't even left a note.

  Abe grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled me to my feet. He yanked me to one side, and I saw Evan had joined us. He unlocked the door I hadn't even realised was at my back.

  Abe hauled me inside and Evan followed us in, turning to lock the door again.

  He dropped me into an armchair. Instantly, I drew my feet up, as though saving myself from the monsters underneath it. But I could see the monsters standing in front of me, arms folded, considering me coldly. Everything I wanted to ask was stuck in my throat, behind that wad of torn cloth.

  "We're not going to hurt you," said Evan, "We don't kill living people."

  I stared at him, thinking of Jack and Frank. He must have remembered those casualties, as he added, "When we can help it." He leaned over and jerked the binding over my mouth down, then stuck his finger between my teeth to dislodge the wad of cloth. I tried to bite him, but he was too fast. He gave me a disappointed look and dropped the cloth onto the floor.

  My breath hissed in over my teeth and I still couldn't speak.

  "You're part of their community," Evan said mildly, all business, "You know where they hide. I want you to tell me."

  I found my voice. "Fuck off."

  He smiled tiredly.

  "You do realise what you're protecting, don't you? What they are, what they do?"

  My eyes went to young Abe, then away.

  "Abe's a bit different. Aren't you, Abe?"

  "Aye, sir." Abe said, then he lost interest in us. He lifted his shirt instead, to look at the holes in his skin. They were mostly closed now. Absent-mindedly, he dug a forefinger into the largest of them, wriggled it and worked his thumb in. He pulled out a dark pellet and regarded it with distaste.

  "I'll see to that in a minute," said Evan, agitated.

  I launched myself towards the door and ploughed into the ground with Abe's steely hand around my ankle. My shoulders, ribs, head hurt, and with my hands still bound I couldn't find any more fight. I began to yell for help. Abe grabbed my jaw and forced it closed again.

  Panting, I lay on the floor, eyes tight shut, then wide, wide open at the man who crouched next to me.

  "You're going to hurt yourself," said Evan quietly, "And you're being silly."

  "You're holding me prisoner," I bit out, "And he keeps hitting me."

  "I'm sorry," he said, which wasn't much use to me. "Abe, if you hit her again..." He left the threat hanging, perhaps to hide the fact that there was no real threat there. "Help her up."

  Abe pulled me halfway to my feet and I stiffened as Evan fished in my po
ckets, pulling out my wallet, keys, tram ticket, phone. The ticket, keys and wallet he dropped on the table. The phone he examined, bringing up the contact list.

  What now? I tried to remember what I'd told him about family and friends.

  When he put the phone in his pocket I didn't know whether or not to be relieved. On the one hand, he wasn't dragging Kate into this awful mess. On the other, there was no way I could use it to call for help.

  Abe let go and I folded to the ground. Evan offered me a hand and I glared at him.

  He sighed. "Suit yourself."

  He crossed the room to a small suitcase resting on a round dining table. He picked through it and came back with a long, wicked-looking pair of tweezers. He gestured at Abe, who lifted his shirt again. Evan dug the tweezers into the holes and plucked out two more bullets. The holes closed and Abe dropped the shirt over his torso.

  "How many more to kill?" asked Abe.

  "I'm not sure," said Evan, crossing back to the table to drop the tweezers inside the bag, "I want to get Mundy at least. And the woman. Magdalene."

  "Home, then?"

  "Maybe."

  Abe stuck a finger through one of the holes in his shirt.

  "Go and change," said Evan. Abe obeyed, disappearing down the hall.

  Evan faced me again. For a moment, his expression was all sorrow and loss. "Lissa. How could you be involved in this? I thought you were different. Better. I thought…"

  "What? That you'd track me down and use me to find your victims?"

  "God, no. When we met I hadn't the faintest idea that you could have anything to do with it." The sorrow vanished, replaced by disgust and a dark scowl. "I had no idea you collaborated with the undead."

  "As opposed to you and your cousin. Though that's not actually your cousin, is it?"

  "Only in a manner of speaking. Abe is more of a family heirloom."

  "What does that mean? What are you?"

  He smiled thinly. "A man with a mission. A holy mission, I'm reliably informed."

  Warily, I got to my feet, almost losing my balance due to my tied hands. Everything ached.

  The debilitating terror was subsiding and I realised that I wasn't in immediate danger. Gary was out of harm's way and I was probably the only one from the Elsternwick house who didn't know where to find the second safe house. Evan and his family heirloom had kidnapped the wrong person. For a pair of hunters, one of whom had presumably been at it for centuries, they were pretty amateurish.

  The part of my anger that was fuelled by fear was ebbing, and I could think more cool-headedly now. That was important. I had to think my way out of this damned mess. It had been very clearly established that I was never going to fight my way out of it.

  "I don't know where they've gone," I said, "I'm not part of Mundy's crowd."

  The impulse to swear at the sceptical look in Evan's eye was strong. I quashed it. I needed to stay calm, to keep him calm, so I could seek my chances while Abe was out of the room.

  "Evan!" A strident cry came from down the hall. Evan sighed.

  "Stay put," he said and left to see what he was needed for.

  His departure confirmed my status as no threat whatsoever, and annoyed the hell out of me. I got up and while I used my teeth to loosen the knots on the cloth around my wrists, I limped around my prison.

  The first thing I checked was the front door. Deadlocked. No doubt Evan had the key. Damn. I resumed prowling.

  We were in a stand-alone house. Bedrooms and the bathroom must be down the corridor where Abe had withdrawn. The kitchen, dining room and living room at this end of the house were open-plan. Cheaply furnished, with a small old-model TV and cheap DVD player in one corner. It was a fully-furnished holiday rental house probably. Certainly no modern homeowner would have such crappy home entertainment gear.

  A very expensive laptop hooked up to an external drive sat on the coffee table. It was in sleep mode and needed a password. I couldn't imagine where to start to have a snowball's chance in hell of guessing it before Evan returned. Real life is a lot less serendipitous than the movies.

  Instead, I tested all the windows. Locked, with those burglar-proof devices that couldn't be moved without a key.

  The kitchen proved to be stranger and no more helpful. The benches and stovetop were covered in pots, beakers, foil and trays and looked like a film set of a home-bake drug lab. The idea that Evan was a slayer with a crack dealership on the side was too bizarre to contemplate. I couldn't work out which of the two activities I found most repugnant. Instead, I looked in the understocked kitchen cupboards and drawers, without finding anything useful. I did find some jars full of white powder and a bin full of empty painkiller boxes, which supported the increasingly probable theory that Evan made pocket money cooking up DIY heroin. Another reason to hate him in the already full 'I Hate Evan' ledger.

  What the kitchen didn't have was a decent sharp knife. Bloody holiday rental houses.

  Finally, I worked the strip of cloth around my wrists loose and wrenched my hands free. My wrists were sore but relatively undamaged. I wondered what my face looked like, after all those casually delivered slaps. My neck was hurting and a bastard of a headache was blossoming in the side of my skull.

  I soaked the cloth in cold water at the kitchen sink and dabbed my face with it. My face hurt, but at least there wasn't any blood. The chill of it was soothing.

  "How is that feeling?"

  "Oh fine thanks, Evan," I said, turning. "My massively bruised and swollen face won't interfere with my supermodel career in the slightest. Do thank your boy Abe for not breaking any actual bones while he was at it."

  "I'll do that," he said blandly, "Considering he might easily have done."

  "What do you people want?"

  He sighed, as though that was a question too complex for examination.

  "You are such a prick." I belatedly remembered the relative power of our positions. I curbed my impulse to share further character readings.

  "You're probably right," said Evan, and it struck me that he sounded like nothing so much as an old, bored vampire unable to drum up either ire or humour for anything in a world gone humdrum.

  "Why don't you tell me what you want?" I suggested.

  "So you can tell me to go to hell?"

  "It'll pass the time."

  A half-hearted smile made a fleeting appearance. "I want to know where Mundy took everyone."

  "I don't know."

  "See?"

  "I didn't tell you to go to hell. I said I don't know. I don't. I wasn't in on the planning for that."

  "What were you doing there, then?"

  To be honest, I didn't know myself. Was it because I was so good at spectacularly bad ideas? That I couldn't keep my nose out of other people's business? Yup. That was the one.

  "My friend needed to be there and I wanted to keep an eye on him," I said, deciding to keep it simple. I felt an unreasonable stab of resentment. I both wanted Gary to be safe and to come crashing through windows like Errol Flynn to rescue me. I couldn't decide which of us was the bigger idiot.

  "What were you doing at your 'friend's' house on Monday?"

  "I needed to see him."

  "About?"

  "A place he could stay where you couldn't find him."

  "His welfare is important to you?"

  "Look, Gary isn't like the others. Why can't you leave him out of it?"

  "They're all alike," said Evan.

  "What about him?" I nodded at Abe, who had returned wearing fresh clothes.

  "Abe's different, like I said."

  "So is Gary. You can't murder him for what you think he might be like."

  "It isn't murder." For the first time, Evan's reply betrayed feeling. Vehemence. Defiance. Defensiveness.

  "What do you call it, then?"

  "Justice."

  "Who for?"

  "Those they've killed."

  "Gary's never killed anyone." No-one human, anyway, and only on request. I decided no
t to clarify.

  "Self-murder," Abe made an unexpected contribution. He wasn't passionate or angry when he said it. "That is a sin."

  Evan closed his eyes wearily and I looked at Abe. "Pardon?"

  "Abominations in the eyes of the Lord," said Abe, in the longest speech I'd heard him deliver, and he might as well have been rattling off a shopping list, "To become unholy, they agree to die. Self-murder. Sin. We cleanse the world of sin."

  "You're undead," I said to him, "That means you committed self-murder too."

  "I have earned absolution," he said, very clearly, looking at Evan.

  Evan looked like he would have liked to crawl under the carpet and stay there.

  "You're a piece of work." Contempt curdled my voice. Cold bastard. Lying to me. Using me. Flashes of memory of Evan and Abe trying to kill Gary. There were no words to describe the feelings roaring inside me.

  Evan's eyes bored into mine. All those angles and planes I had found so beautiful in his face had become stark and harsh.

  "You hypocrite, Lissa. Look at you. Consorting with them. Protecting them."

  "At least I'm not a murderer."

  "It's not murder."

  "You tried to kill my friend." The rage broke out in a sob, and the fact I was crying only fuelled my fury. "You're just another… another thing that rips up what's important to me. You're no better than that undead bitch who murdered Daniel and turned my mother."

  "Your mother is…?"

  "You kill whoever you like, whoever gets in your way," I shouted over the top of his startled interjection, "Whether they're human, whether they've ever hurt anybody. You're worse. You're supposed to be human. You're supposed to be better than they are."

  Bastard. Bastard. Judging me when he didn't know a damned thing, about me, about Gary, about any of it.

  His half-stunned, half-contemptuous expression dissolved when my fist connected with his side of his face. I didn't have the strength or the training to do any real damage, but it was pretty satisfying anyway. At least until Abe pounced and pinned my arms to my side.

  Evan explored the bones around his eye socket as he glowered at me. "You've got a lot of explaining to do."

  "I do not have to explain any part of my life to you, you cold-hearted fucker." I held on to my rage, though I could feel it ebbing, replaced by that yawning chasm of loss once more. I wanted to hate Evan. I was so angry with him. For being a killer. For not being the man I thought he was on Sunday. I missed his laugh and his smile and his skin and damn him, damn him, damn him to all hells.