Acacia looked around, her nose twitching as though she could smell something rotten. 'They're out there, all right. Someone go fetch Nigel. And where the fuck's Budgie?'
'Here they come,' Taipan said with a nod.
The rain fell heavier and louder; thunder rolled over them like army tanks. And now Kevin could hear vehicles, low and rumbling.
Taipan sprawled doll-like on the ground, arms and legs spread wide as the report of a rifle shot echoed over the flat. Kevin reached for Kala but Acacia was ahead of him, throwing the girl to the ground as a ragged volley broke out. Kevin dropped to the floor. Muzzle flashes sparkled through the rain. Timber shards erupted from the walls. Bullets whizzed overhead. Taipan's gang returned fire, filling the air with man-made thunder and lightning.
'They're coming up from the gully,' a panicked voice shouted.
'Sneaky bastards,' Budgie said as he appeared on the veranda, unloading short bursts toward the creek. 'Usin' that storm to come at us in the daytime.'
'Inside,' someone yelled. 'Take cover!'
'No,' Acacia shouted. 'That's the fucking Strigoi standing up there. We have to get out of here.'
Taipan hauled himself to his knees, his chest bloody, and shook his head like a groggy boxer. 'That bloodhag? Here? I'd love to get me hands 'round her scrawny neck. But Acacia's right. They got us by the balls.' He grabbed a biker by the sleeve. 'Bring the Rover 'round. We can't lose that gear. The rest of youse, hit the bikes - meet up at the shearing shed.'
'You got it, Tai.' The biker pulled keys from his pocket and took a step. There was a sound like a fist hitting a punching bag and he dropped in mid-step and lay still. The keys shone dimly in his outstretched hand.
Kevin grabbed the keys. It was pretty obvious he was just as much a target as anyone.
He heard his father shout, Son, wait.
He stayed low.
Bullets whipped around him, thudding into the farmhouse and garage, clanging against the panel van, ripping holes in the Rover's canvas cover. He slithered eel-like down the stairs and across the ground till he could haul himself into the Rover. Soldiers approached from the creek, a line of camouflaged uniforms dashing in short spurts up the gentle slope. Others were advancing in quick dashes from the west, wraiths in rain, with vehicles following behind.
Mira, unmistakable in her coat, stood beside a vehicle identical to Hunter's custom BMW, with Hunter by her side. They wore body armour under their coats, and swords.
Swords! What the fuck? Bullets smacked into the Rover. Kevin hit the starter. A quick reverse and turn and he pulled the Rover up beside the veranda, its nose pointed toward the creek. 'Kala, get in!'
Men ripped the canopy aside and jumped aboard. Revving motorcycles added to the cacophony.
'Go,' Acacia urged. 'Go!'
The Rover filled with the clamour of automatic fire. Kevin winced, his ear drums shredding. Gunpowder wafted around him. He planted his foot. The Rover lurched off with a scrawl of gravel and mud. Bullets whipped through the canvas, rang on the body, shattered the windshield. Something punched Kevin in the back, stole his breath. He bent over the wheel, relying on body weight to steer as he fought to stay conscious.
'Straight through them,' Acacia told him.
The Rover ploughed over a scraggly lemon tree and tore down the slope. Someone stood behind Kevin, firing. Shells bounced around Kevin, stinging his skin, rattling on the floor. A man in a uniform appeared beside them. A gun barked and Kevin had the impression of the man doing a star jump, his weapon flying from his hand before he fell. Kevin wrenched the wheel to the right as they reached the creek, the vehicle jolting along the rough ground.
'Head toward the main road, best way you can,' Acacia said.
He nodded, heard someone say there were cars up at the house, some pursuing, and someone else asked if the rest had got away, if the bikes had been able to slip through the net. Wind shook the vehicle and rain pelted down. Kevin could barely see the ground ahead. But he managed to find a crossing and they nosed across the creek and up the other side and no-one, as far as he could tell, followed them through the downpour.
Taipan settled into the seat beside him, an assault rifle in his grip.
'Nice job, fella. Don't make us mates, but.'
'Suits me,' Kevin said. 'Is Kala all right?'
Taipan checked behind them. 'Yeah, we're in the clear. Keep drivin', that mob might be comin' still.'
'Who are they?'
'VS. The enemy.'
'They were trying to kill us!'
'Yeah, they do that a lot.'
Kevin stared at Taipan.
'Still wanna go it alone?'
He had no answer for that.
Taipan pointed past the bonnet. 'Watch the road, eh. We're not outta the woods yet.'
FIFTEEN
They drove south and east, using secondary roads and avoiding towns, refuelling from jerry cans when they needed to. Two bikes travelled with them. Once they were clear, Hippie replaced Kevin behind the wheel. It was a welcome relief. His arms felt heavy, as though he was carrying spare tyres in each; he could barely keep his eyes open. A result of his injuries, he wondered, or the daylight, reaching through the clouds to knock him around? Kala's slow kaboom. He crawled into the dimness of the tray with Taipan and Acacia to sleep away the rest of the daytime. Water sloshed in the floor though the rain had stopped. Half a dozen khaki crates stamped with yellow stencils vibrated noisily in the back; the sight made Kevin nervous. There were enough munitions to start a small war. He tried not to think about what would've happened if a bullet had hit the wrong spot.
'From a friend of a friend down south,' Taipan told him, and patted a nearby box marked SAM with all the affection of a man for his favourite dog. 'Even got us a splinter to stick in their eye in the sky.'
'Lucky that bird wasn't up today,' Acacia said.
'Mighta lost more if it hadda bin,' Taipan said, his tone bitter.
'Probably the storm,' Acacia said. 'Or maybe we weren't important enough.'
'Oh, we're important, all right. Important enough for that bloodhag to risk sunburn. We got lucky, is all.'
''Bout time we had some of the good variety,' Acacia said. 'Nigel, you figure?'
'I reckon.' He made a face, as though he'd bitten into something rotten. 'Wish I could get me hands on that surfer-boy.' Taipan bundled his jacket for a pillow and closed his eyes.
'Wish I could get my hands on that chopper,' Acacia said dreamily, her voice already heavy with sleep.
'You can fly?' Kevin asked her.
'I was a shit-hot stick bitch back in my day. Ha, my actual day, that is. Had to break a few heads to convince those white bastards that a black sheila could fly as good as they could, but I got there. Musterin', mostly. They called me "the black cockatoo".'
'Because you could fly,' Kevin said.
'No,' she replied. 'Because I had more balls than most of them rotor jockeys.'
He looked at her blankly.
'They reckoned I had a cock or two, geddit? Anyway, I had to give that up when I got bit. Not much call for night musterin', eh?'
'How about the black cockatoo and the white galah keep it down, eh?' Taipan growled.
'Needs his beauty sleep,' Acacia whispered. 'Lots of it.'
'Shuddup if you don't wanna try flyin' again - without them wings.'
'So when was the last time you flew?' Kevin whispered.
Acacia went very quiet, the humour fading to melancholy, maybe; hard to tell what was behind those eyes when they were glazed with that opaque jade. She gestured to him and he stumbled over crates and people to sit next to her.
'I was flying Bells on a property in the Centre. Sweet machine. Reliable, great visibility. This one time, there I am in Alice, taking a break with my girl. We had to play it pretty straight back then. The boys didn't like it, seeing women off the market. Hardly a target-rich environment, you know what I'm saying? Good way to get yourself a beating or worse. So, we're in this bar, a bit qu
iet, off the main strip, eh, and this bloke comes in just after dark looking like he's walked barefoot and backward all the way from Darwin. Bad news written all over him. But he wants a pilot. He wants a pilot to fly him, overnight, to Adelaide. He has a briefcase full of cash. Thousands of pounds.
'I say yes. Cassie's against it. The bloke smells wrong, smells like trouble; but the money, that's different. I tell her, I'll be straight back, and with that kind of cash behind us, we can get out of the Centre, go anywhere we want. Somewhere we can hold hands in public without gettin' bashed. It doesn't sound like too much to ask, does it?
'So we skedaddle, right there and then. We hire a chopper from a contractor I know and fly to Adelaide. No sooner are we on the ground than the bastard jumps me. I've landed well out of town, there's no-one around for miles - I'm toast, right? But he gets a case of the guilts and brings me back. You know what he says to me? Last thing I hear before he bolts and leaves me to it, sun comin' up and that? He says sorry. Hunters got him not long after, so I found out later. Pity. I would've liked to have caught up with him myself to find out just how sorry he was.
'Anyway, by some miracle, I don't get sprung, and that night I fly back to the Alice and get my girl. Not as easy as it sounds when you don't know what the fuck's just happened to you and you've got a serious case of the tremors, eh, and we shoot through. We make a bit of a mess of it till Mother tracks us down and gives us some how-to.' She fixed her eyes on him, owl-like, staring into him, blinking like a camera shutter, her eyes flicking between brown and that luminous green. 'And we've stayed with her since, helpin' others like you to get their shit together. Not all of them stay. That's their choice. But we tell them what's what and how to go about things, give them their chance to stay ahead of the Hunters.'
'The Hunters. That's who just shot the shit out of us, right? Gespensten-something or another. Nigel mentioned them back at the house.'
'Same thing, different clothes.'
She told him to get some sleep, then, and he dozed, his body flushing fire and ice. The throbbing bullet wound in his back kept jerking him awake. Memories of the shootout teased him.
'Shit!'
'What now, fella?' Taipan grumbled.
'The bastards got Kala's Monaro.'
'One thing you whitefellas gotta learn,' Taipan said, 'takin' somethin' and keepin' it are two different things.'
SIXTEEN
Reece looked past his reflection in the window to peer inside the Monaro's cabin. 'You find any keys for this?' he asked Felicity, standing behind him.
She shook her head. It was still raining; like pebbles being thrown on the garage's unsealed tin roof. At least the thunder had moved on.
'Impound this. And see if the judas knows who used to drive it.'
'Didn't figure you for a car man, Reece.'
'I have hidden depths.'
'Yeah, real deep. Middle-aged crisis, much?' She pulled up the hood on her anorak and squelched back to the house. She still limped, having taken a bullet during the charge on the farmhouse. He'd told her to hang back, to let the troopers go in first, but she hadn't listened. Maybe if she'd seen Dave lying on the stretcher with a fistful of face missing, she'd have been a little more cautious.
Reece had stuck close to Mira; hadn't shot anyone nor been shot by them. Should've been more enthusiastic, he supposed, his career being in the balance, as it were, but he couldn't shake that expression on Diana Matheson's face: the fear, the loathing. You'd think a copper would be used to being despised, but there you go. And just for once, he'd earned the enmity. He ran his hand over the car's roof - nice, real nice, though the bullbar kind of ruined the shape - and paused on the way out to check the Sandman once more. He'd seen it before, too; yesterday morning, blocking the road and then chasing him and Dave. He stepped out into the soaking rain, relishing the cold hit on his face and neck, washing away the urge to take the surfie and drown him in a pothole. The arsehole had been one of those who'd hounded them into the roadhouse, who'd killed Dave and, inadvertently, left a woman a widow and her son doomed.
'They're heading east,' Mira shouted from the veranda.
He splashed across to join her.
'He tell you that?' Reece asked, indicating the surfie. He was handcuffed to a veranda post and Felicity had him up against the rail so his back was getting saturated. The judas looked miserable. Perhaps he was starting to realise just what a bed of nails he'd made for himself.
'The blood,' Mira said, lifting her left hand to show her bracelets of scars. 'Vague but good enough till I decide to pay the grease monkey a dream visit. Young Nigel hasn't told us anything we didn't already know. Wish I'd brought a toothbrush; traitors always leave an unpleasant taste in the mouth.'
Reece checked the surfie again and noticed the russet dribble crusted on the man's neck. She hadn't healed the wound, just left it to close up naturally. He was a red-eye; it wouldn't take long.
'We've turned this place inside out. Call it a day?'
Mira shook her head. There was a reddish sheen on her forehead and cheeks, a flush on the throat where her hood didn't quite cover it. 'Not till I know there's no clue to the location of the Riders' nest.'
'Nothing at all from the surfie?'
'Useless. I get the idea that Taipan never trusted him.'
'And you do?'
'Don't be stupid. But the blood doesn't lie. Not to me.'
'A girl drives the Monaro,' Felicity reported, standing away from Nigel as though treachery was contagious. 'Half-breed called Kala. Got a soft spot for the mechanic, apparently.'
'Taipan's moll,' Nigel added, as eager as a puppy to please. 'Real stuck-up little slut. Opened a vein for the pup as quick as you please.'
'Jealousy's a curse, isn't it?' Mira said to Reece.
'Speak when you're spoken to,' Felicity told Nigel, emphasising the point with a slap on the head.
'So's avarice,' Reece said to Mira, then asked Felicity, 'Got a final count?'
'Four cold even, all red-eyes; no prisoners.'
'Eight dead, no vampires. Not exactly a runaway success.'
'Taipan's proving as slippery as his namesake,' Mira said. 'Damn it.'
He thought she was going to take another shot at him for having let Taipan escape in the first place, but a four-wheel-drive pulled up. Felicity excused herself to talk to the driver. 'They've found something down in the gully,' she reported.
'I didn't do it,' Nigel said, and Reece felt like slapping him, too. Had Mira promised him immunity for his crimes? Justice sometimes really was blind.
'It's the family who own this place,' Felicity relayed. 'They're all dead.' She hesitated.
'Yes?' Mira demanded.
'They bled the two children. Decant, by the looks, but they did bleed them.'
Mira snarled. 'I want that bastard, Reece. I want him on ice.'
'Why him, Strigoi?'
'We are a self-policing society, Reece. It's how we keep the herd off our back. We take care of our own business.'
'But if you weren't chasing the Night Riders, they wouldn't be running. They wouldn't need to do the things you don't want them to.'
'I'm starting not to like you.'
'I was a cop for twenty years. It's all about motive.'
'Motive and opportunity, detective. Am I right?'
He nodded.
'Well, right now, I have the opportunity. The motive is none of your business. Be satisfied that I'm trying to take a pack of killers off the streets, and know that the rewards for those who help me will be substantial.'
Felicity joined them on the veranda. Maybe the word 'rewards' had carried. Red-eyes' hearing was exceptional, especially when the subject interested them.
'What will we do with the judas?' she asked.
'We had a deal. We'll honour it. In our own time. Take him back to Jasmine's and see if he can't make himself useful. I want you to keep an eye on things there.'
Reece said, 'Turner won't like that. She'll see it as interference.'
'Whitby Downs, her own side project notwithstanding, presents a sizeable investment on our part. She's stepping up as a serious part of our bovine food chain. She'll fall into line, or just fall. Her choice.'
'I'll tread lightly,' Felicity said. Her tone soured, though, as she asked, 'May I ask where you and Hunter Reece will be, Strigoi?'
'Back in 'Bane. Hunter Reece will be kicking aircraft mechanics in the balls until they fix my helicopter. And I will be paying a visit to another mechanic. With what I've got in mind, a kick in the balls will be mild by comparison. Now, let's get the hell out of this daylight before we all lose another layer of skin.'
SEVENTEEN
Commotion woke Kevin, but by the time he'd clawed his way to alertness, he was alone in the back of the Rover. He felt like shit, that was a fact. Cold and very thirsty, he pulled himself upright on one of the crates and scanned his whereabouts. Flat plain dotted with Mitchell grass like a mangy dog's coat, distant trees blending into the darkening sky. The remnants of storm clouds stretched like threadbare rags, dyed pink and purple by the last rays of sunset.
'We're here, sleepyhead.' Kala peeked in over the tailgate. The tattered canvas looked like a tent flap. 'Give us a hand to unload, eh?'
He pulled himself to his feet, feeling groggy. 'Where's "here"?'
'The Shed.'
He folded the canvas back and they dropped the tailgate. The Rover had been parked close to one wall of a long, tin building. There were gaps where sheets of corrugated iron had come loose. The yards, not a straight post or rail to be seen, were being reclaimed by scrubby trees, and a fig was prying at the far wall with its tentacle roots.
Kala introduced a bloke called Reg - he sported an impressive blond mullet - and a red-eye, Penny, a sparrow of a woman dressed in jeans and a matching leather vest, her skin the light brown of weak tea. Reg pocketed a set of wraparound sunglasses, highlighting the raw oval of sunburn around his green-glowing eyes as he gave Kevin the once-over. Penny's narrow, almond-shaped eyes measured him from under her black fringe like a crow assessing road kill. A faint butterfly rash dotted her face; her eyes flashed red. The rash showed on her throat, too, highlighting a set of four dark dots, pimples or a tattoo maybe, just above her collar.
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