This was risky. The three of them out here like shags on a rock. He'd blown his cover with Diana Matheson, but Mira seemed happy with how things had gone. She'd had her tongue down Felicity's throat since they'd got back to the car; gasps and a metallic scent told him Mira was enjoying a celebratory drink. To hell with them.
He lit a cigarette, his hand trembling, and kept his focus on the forlorn house in the distance, its outline uncertain against the cloud-dark night. They'd done a drive-by when they'd arrived, then parked well down Barlow's Siding Road. And they'd got lucky: Taipan's red-eye had come in from the highway. If she'd noticed Felicity keeping watch, she hadn't given any sign. Any moment now…
Screams.
He straightened, hand on his pistol as he peered into the dark. Who knew how many Night Riders could be stalking them. The red-eye might've been a decoy or a lure.
'Our boy's up and about, then,' Mira said, her voice husky.
'Christ,' Felicity said, and he saw, from the corner of his eye, her brace against the car with one hand as she stumbled, her collar open, her throat smeared darkly. 'Is he killing them?'
Mira lifted a set of night-vision glasses while Reece fought the compulsion to run back to the house and jam his HeartStopper against the boy's ribs and put him down. A boy has to eat, Mira had said. Reece's stomach turned. This was wrong. So very wrong.
'There, across the paddock,' Mira said. 'The boy and a new friend. The Riders have collected their waif.'
The front door opened, a flash of light, and Reece could just discern the figures stumbling down the stairs: Diana and the young woman. What had Kevin called her? Meg. She had a patch of white - a towel, maybe - on her throat, and wasn't walking very well. Diana left her propped against the stairs and went underneath the house. She drove out in an old Falcon and helped the girl in, then sped off, heading Charleville way.
'Let's follow them,' Mira said. 'We'll have to make sure the girl gets treated properly at the hospital. Felicity: get an alert issued for the grease monkey. The Riders will think it strange if we don't throw up a few roadblocks.'
'You don't want to follow the boy?' Reece asked.
'Let them think they've got away.' She held up her hand; the blood bracelets crawled sluggishly around her wrists. 'The bloodlink's working. Once our reinforcements arrive, we can reel them in.'
Reece drove; letting pale, excited Felicity make the calls from the passenger seat while Mira sat, silent and expectant and scheming, in the back. Felicity eyed him cheekily, the cat that had taken the canary, as though being munched made her special.
At the hospital, he made sure Diana saw him, and her look of pure hatred wasn't something he'd forget any time soon. But she and Meg played along and Mira had a word with the attending physician and was satisfied he'd take the money and keep his mouth shut. A nasty bite, she reported; the grease monkey had taken a good slurp before doing a runner with Taipan's red-eye.
On the drive back to Barlow's Siding, a call came in on Felicity's phone. It was a very satisfied Mira who handed the phone back after a short conversation.
'It looks as if our play with the grease monkey was wasted after all,' she said. 'One of Taipan's little playmates just offered a deal. The Night Riders are as good as ours.'
Great. Reece gripped the wheel tighter. All of this fucking around for nothing.
At the hotel, they found Constable Smith waiting for them. Mira and Felicity left Reece to handle it. Smith had gone out to the house and found scenes of a scuffle, some blood, and Reece fed him the official line about the gang having come back and the girl being hurt and Kevin being missing; an all-points had been issued. It was a federal matter, now.
Smith might not have bought it but he let it slide. The constable would bear watching.
Back in the room, Mira and Felicity were already naked and he made his verbal report as they watched him strip.
'Our men will be here by daybreak,' Mira said. 'Which gives us the rest of the night to paint the town red.'
He hesitated, one leg on the bed.
'Metaphorically,' she said as she pulled him down, then breathed out an exasperated, 'Gods, Reece: metaphorically.'
Much later, Reece sat on the rumpled, stained bed, feeling rumpled and stained himself from Mira's game of lick, sip, suck. His body was covered in bruises, gradually fading; the Strigoi did like to bite.
Usually, drinking would invigorate him, but now he was filled with lassitude and a thousand aches. All he wanted was to sleep. He lit a cigarette and wondered what Taipan would do with the newborn Kevin Matheson; if they found Mira's blood in his, it wouldn't be pretty.
Mira came in from the bathroom, her muscled body beaded with water, her short hair lank around the hard lines of her cheeks. There was no sign of the wounds from which he and Felicity had drunk, but the ruddiness in her face was proof enough of the blood she'd taken from them.
'You and your cigarettes.' She turned her back on him to open the veranda door and stand there, uncaring of whoever might see.
His eyes drank her in, the wide shoulders and the deep cleft in her spine still dewed and rosy from the shower, the shapely arse and toned legs. She had the body and features of a woman in her twenties, but he'd been around long enough to recognise the years of bloodlust that had sucked the excess flesh from her bones, that had pinched her face into a mask of cunning and avarice; to recognise the enormous age lurking in her eyes.
Mira was old enough to be bored but not old enough to give up, and that made her the most dangerous of the breed. And now she had a target - Taipan and his Night Riders.
She paced over to him and took the cigarette from his fingers, squashed it out in her hand, looked him deep in the eyes and asked, 'Why can't you overcome your nasty little addictions?'
'Been asking myself that for 40 years.'
'You look tired.' The way she said it, the way she looked at him: she knew. Forty years, and the blood was losing its kick.
Her Favourite was losing his flavour. Age was catching up with him.
The shower turned off.
'Felicity and I will be in the room next door. Get some sleep, Reece. Tomorrow's forecast is for cloud and rain. We'll take the Riders as soon as our men arrive, catch them in their pyjamas. They'll never know what hit them.'
TEN
The room closed in, the moons and stars glowing sickly green, cats eyes in the night. A Dalek glinted on a shelf. Books. A game console. A poster of a football team. A cricket bat, pads and stumps, sticking out of a plastic bin.
Where the bloody hell were the Crawfords?
Kevin sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands, his guts clenching like a fist, his gorge rising. The door stood shut; he felt a pressure building on the other side. A pressure that bore down, bowing the timber, reaching for him, wanting to crush the breath from his lungs, the life from his body. He sprang to his feet, expecting the door to open, to find a grinning, bloody Taipan there with his mother's head in his hand, or maybe Meg, dead and bloodless. Gasping, he worked the window catch and forced it open. The night air rushed in, carrying the scent of dust and cow shit. He opened the window as far as it would go. Winced as the damn thing gave an almighty squeak. No footsteps. But no time to lose. Up and out, landing lightly on the balls of his feet, surprising himself with his balance.
He ran for the creek, that dark line of trees at the bottom of the slope the only decent cover in miles. Which way to town, to home? Right, he thought, with the moon behind him; his shadow a soft uncertain thing, preceding him over the stubble and the dirt as he sprinted, waiting for the gunfire, for the racing steps, for the motors. But there was nothing, just his footfalls, and he realised he could see well - very well - as he dodged the bumps and hollows, the stray logs. His breath came shorter and shorter; his vision narrowed. The ground tilted. He tripped, fell. He scrabbled to the windmill, clutched the rust-spotted frame for support and stared back at the house. No pursuit, no nothing. He lurched away, stumbling down the slope where water
glittered dully in a pool surrounded by shrubs and trees, and farther down there was a crossing, the barest of trickles across the packed earth, the cutting indented with tyre tracks and hoof prints. He knelt by a pool, the scent of mud and rotting vegetation closing over him, but he splashed his face anyway, aware of the grittiness of the muddy water but relishing the cool shock. His stomach heaved with contractions. His vision blurred, the moon a wavering silver fingernail in the ripples he'd caused, the world shimmering till he could barely tell if he was looking at the moon in the pond or in the sky.
Reality slipped through his fingers like water; he held onto one thought - he had to get home. The charcoal ruins. He had to find his mother and Meg. Screaming. Had to know they were safe. Bleeding. Had to hold them. Bleeding! Had to.
He ran, sobbing, gasping, trying to stay beneath the level of the bank. Christ, he was hot. Burning up. He felt so empty, his guts wrapping around his spine. A bird called, the shrill, sharp cry of a curlew like a child crying for its mother, and somewhere a cow lowed, sounding scared. He staggered along, tripping over rocks and branches, skidding in mud holes, splashing through stagnant puddles. Then he smelled it - a new staleness, a cloying fragrance that belonged to abattoirs. Carcasses swinging on hooks, the concrete awash with red, the patter of it falling, the pungent scent of raw meat and fresh blood, the stench of shit and fear, fearful eyes bulging white in the crush.
Ahead, a twin cab four-wheel-drive lay crumpled nose-down in the creek bed. A broken tree and flattened grass and churned earth showed where it had rolled over the bank. He recognised the vehicle. He'd replaced its shock absorbers not that long ago, the victims of too many miles of corrugation and stock grids. He crept toward it. A smear on the rear door. Mud? He knew better than that. He knew, deep down. And yet he reached, flesh and shadow joining across the white paint to rest on that silver handle. He heaved the door open. The cab light, strikingly stark, threw crazy shadows from overhead. A midnight raid on the fridge, light spilling out. He stared at the heaped pile of arms and legs, heads, naked flesh like candle wax. One child gazing sightlessly at him, his head bent backward over someone's thigh, his throat torn into pale shreds and hollow blackness. Mrs Crawford, stripped to bra and knickers, half covered in the middle of the tangle, long hair matted, lips torn, a frown on her face as though appalled to be seen in her underwear. Rusty streaks on her chest, staining the white of her bra. One nipple stuck out over the rim of the cup. He resisted the urge to tuck it back. Her husband, bare back arched toward him at the bottom of the pile, head and shoulder hidden in the foot recess.
Kevin stepped closer and closer, breath frozen, vision locked on the nest of flesh, the vacant eyes, the road maps of dried blood. He lifted a dangling child's hand, cold and soft. The smell of rot and blood and shit filled him. The smell of death. He sniffed, rolled that bony wrist between his fingers. Lowered his face, eyesight angling down, filling with a layer of crusted brown smears caking the tanned flesh, knobs of bone stretching the skin. Cold against his lips, so very cold. Raw chicken against his tongue.
Movement - an arm falling, a roll of head. He dropped the hand, jerked back, fell, barely registered the impact of stone on his palm, the other finding a splash of water and mud. He crawled away, eyes transfixed on the open door and the bodies within. He hit the bank and stayed still, cowering under an eroded overhang, roots like cobweb in his hair, the smell of earth wrapping around him; earth and mud and blood. He drew his knees up and stared and stared but the carnage remained. He sat there, too scared, too hungry, to move.
'Kevin?'
He blinked. Meg?
Shapes in the creek, approaching. Their shadows reached long and inhuman toward him. Reality crashed down as his senses returned, bright and clear and knife-sharp. He'd been biting his own hand. The dimpled flesh looked as if it had been pounded with a meat tenderiser.
'It's all right, Kevin.'
Fear in Kala's voice. Suspicion, too. Acacia followed her; the whiny surfer dude, Nigel, brought up the rear. He carried a military-looking rifle, like someone had shrunk an M-16 in a microwave.
'Taipan's gonna freak if he hears the pup saw this,' Nigel said.
'If he hears,' Kala snapped.
'Hey, that's not my worry. Taipan wants to go makin' any bit of trash he comes across-'
'Damn right it's no concern of yours,' Kala said. They walked spread out, as though through a minefield, converging on Kevin's hiding spot. 'Go and bring the van down, close as you can.'
'You want this?' Nigel held out the rifle.
'Take it, we won't need it,' Kala said, but Acacia grabbed the gun and sent him on his way with a jerk of her head.
Rocks and dirt cascaded where Nigel dug his way up the bank, but Kevin's concentration was on Kala, reaching out toward him as though he was a frightened kitten, even as Acacia said, 'Careful, girl, he's off his tree.'
'Kevin, come with us. We can help you. Honest. No-one's gonna hurt you.'
She was over-heating. An engine block boiling with oil. He could smell her, all coppery, rich like freshly ploughed soil.
He moved and she stepped back. 'That's right. Come with me. We can get you cleaned up. Get you sorted.'
'Jesus,' Acacia said, and her voice sounded so distant, as though she was speaking through a long tube. 'He's got the tremors, got 'em bad.'
'Let's get him back to the house,' Kala said.
'Hold this,' Acacia said, passing the rifle to Kala.
Acacia stepped up, a blur of motion.
He was on the ground, staring at the night sky, and then her face was over him, filling his vision. Something slammed into his chest, sank in, choking him from the inside out, and when she pulled away, so he could see again, he realised there was a length of round, smooth timber in his chest - a cricket stump.
Well and truly stumped. He wanted to laugh at the absurdity, to share the joke, to stand and grab Kala and kiss her and kiss her, but he couldn't move. Not so much as a twitch of a finger. He screamed but the sound was only inside his head, over and over, louder and louder, until the night came slamming down on him, starless and moonless and as silent as the grave.
ELEVEN
Confused, he wishes for wakefulness, but sleep has him fixed to the trail of dreams, and dreaming is remembering, even if the memories are not all his own.
Making love to Meg on a blanket beside the river
His father swearing under the bonnet of a truck
His mother stretching her back after an evening spent puzzling over the accounts at the kitchen table, and smiling as he places a cup of tea by her hand
Mira grabbing his cock and licking her blood-smeared lips
A woman with purple eyes, whose name is Mother, tells him to take care. She's afraid for what's waiting for him at Whitby Downs; she doesn't approve but she understands, and he's thankful for that, it's all he hopes for from her; and outside a dingo howls and dogs whine and his bike is waiting
The woman who is Mother tells him to take care. She's afraid of what he has become, what he might yet become; and he is a she, which is confusing but only after, when he thinks about it; and the words, spoken in farewell as a city door closes, spark such rage, such loss
Khaki-clad police bundle a crying Aboriginal girl into a cage on the back of a ute as though she is no more than a stray dog and he screams at them to let her go and when they come for him, he's happy, because at least they'll be together
There is much he does not remember, much that does not belong to him. He does not recognise the abducted girl, yet, as the incident whirrs by, all red-washed and hazy like a scene from a horror movie, he knows it is intrinsically part of him. She has been taken from him, and he wants her back. Wants her back so badly he's prepared to not only die for her, but to kill. The killing never ends. This, he realises, is what the woman with purple eyes feared most, for these strange, anonymous ghosts inside Kevin's bloodstream, who are part of him, but not.
Kevin gasped awake, limbs and neck jerking. A do
or slammed.
Take care…
The sound so very far away; dream or real? Both? The scene resolved. He was back at the house. The Dalek guarded him from the shelf.
Exterminate.
He closed his eyes against the memory of bodies, jumbled and lifeless.
When he opened them again, he realised he was naked and clean with an ache in his chest. Then the hunger hit him, hit him like a road train. He doubled over, groaning with need. His senses surfaced, tentative, disrupted. Daylight pressed down on the house, a fat man trying to choke him with thick, sweaty hands.
A knock on the door. Kala - he smelled Kala.
He yanked the door open and stood staring, his muscles taut. Saliva flooded his mouth as Kala, arm at full stretch, handed him a mug redolent of heady blood scent. Kevin snatched the mug, unmindful as Kala pulled the door shut. He skolled the brew and lapped drops of scarlet from his hands. He ran a finger around the rim of the mug and sucked it clean. He was still starving, the sensation fighting against his own revulsion and fear.
Was he going to be added to the pile of bodies in the creek? Then why feed him? Why tell him these things, show him these things, if all they were going to do was kill him? Surely Taipan could've done it the other night at the silo. Or simply left him to Mira and this VS bunch. Only the faintest trace of a wound showed where Taipan had shot him the night before but there was a new wound, puckered and angry red over his heart. Out, caught behind. But the game wasn't over.
He dressed in clothes he found piled at the foot of the bed, trying not to think of their last owner. He took a deep breath, then stepped out. Time for the next innings. Voices carried down the hall and he paused, surprised at how clear the conversation was.
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