Blood & Dust

by Jason Nahrung

  'How much more do you want to lose?'

  He looked away, ran a hand through his hair. 'Nothin'. I don't wanna lose nothin' more.'

  'We knew this haven wouldn't last forever. They never do. But I don't think we need to panic. That's probably what they want. No, I doubt Maximilian will risk making more waves, not without proof of our exact location. We'll move on, but in the meantime, I can give Kevin a talisman of his own to protect him from Mira's sight until he either destroys the source of the spell or Mira uses up her supply of his blood.'

  'Are you saying that I should kill Mira?' Kevin said.

  'You need to destroy the blood she has,' Danica answered. 'Or wait for her to exhaust it.'

  'Or I could simply stay right the hell away from her.'

  'She would infest your dreams. But if you offered no advantage to her, with time she would probably grow bored and leave you alone.'

  'So, what do you want from me?' Kevin asked.

  Danica patted Kevin's hand. 'For now, you can stay here, rest, regain your strength. We can teach you how to protect your mind from intruders and how to cope with the blood rush.'

  'I could use some help, for sure.' Kevin rubbed his forehead, trying to silence the voices…

  Iraq is a fucked-up mess in the Middle-East

  You're only young, Kevin. You've got time

  No longer a basic food group

  'What I really need is to talk to my mum.'

  'That can be arranged.'

  He glared at Taipan. 'And I need to know what happened to my dad.'

  'We bin over this, fella. Whaddya want me to say?'

  'I want you to tell me the truth!'

  'I could say the Hunter. It was his gun. I could say me. I kinda brought the Hunter there, eh? But I reckon most of all it was jus' dumb fuckin' luck what did ya old man in. You wanna take it further, you jus' say the word.'

  'That will be enough,' Danica said. 'Bad things happen. We cope the best we can. There is nothing to be gained by taking anything "further". Not in my camp. Do I make myself clear?'

  Both men nodded, with all the acceptance of chastened schoolchildren making a silent vow to finish it outside the fence after the final bell.

  She sighed. 'It's late and you've both suffered far too much. You need rest.' Kevin went to stand up, but she took his hand. 'Before you go, I need you to help me prepare a talisman, Kevin. Something to help you sleep uninterrupted.' She opened what looked like a wooden pencil case and retrieved a glass vial as long as his little finger. She passed him a small knife and had him cut his finger and fill the vial with blood.

  'Good. It's going to take me a little while. Cassie will show you to your room. I'll send the talisman when it's ready.'

  Cassie stood behind him. He hadn't heard her come in. Kevin got up; his sore foot failed him and she grabbed his arm to steady him. Taipan didn't move.

  'It's okay, Kevin,' Danica said. 'You're safe now.'

  So she kept saying, and yet, all he could smell was fear.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Kevin leaned against a wall and pulled on his sneakers while Cassie waited to guide him to his bunk. Byely and Cherny sniffed at him. In the near distance, a dingo howled, and the dogs turned as though searching for the source.

  'Who are you people?' he asked.

  'Your friends, if you let us be,' Cassie said, patting his shoulder. 'Mother will be able to help you sort things out. Rest now. You've earned it.'

  The dogs flanked them as they started out across the yard. Kevin eyed her as they walked. Smooth stride, a glimmer of red in her eyes, a mark there on her neck where the collar of her shirt hung open. She caught him looking, and he said, 'So you're a red-eye?'

  Cassie stopped to face him. The dogs pulled up, too, regarding him curiously, ears perked. 'So?'

  'Just checkin'. Learning to tell people apart, that's all.'

  'Top of the class, then,' she said, and resumed walking. 'You can ask if you want. I don't mind.'

  'Ask?'

  'You were staring at my brand, right?' She touched the mark on her neck, four dots making a square, two finger widths apart.

  'I've seen something like it before.'

  'Brand is just what we call it. Four, usually; sometimes just two. On the neck or over the heart. Lets other fangers know you're spoken for.'

  '"Brand" makes it sound like slavery.'

  'I think of it more as a wedding ring.'

  'Kala didn't have one.' At least, he didn't think she had. He would've noticed, surely.

  'Tai never marked her. Not overly expressive, that fella.'

  'So, you and Acacia, eh.'

  'Yeah, even before she got the change. She was flyin' choppers in the Centre back then, really cool. But then, well, we had to get out of Dodge.'

  'Hard to leave home?' he asked, feeling the sudden swell of loss.

  'She is my home,' Cassie said. 'My country is wherever her feet are touchin'. This is you.' They'd reached a demountable cabin, naked aluminium walls and flat roof, three steps up to the tiny porch that ran down one side. 'You'll find everything you need inside: clothes and stuff. Gimme a shout if they don't fit.'

  'Sure,' Kevin said. The door had no lock but when he opened it, he found a bar that could be slid across from inside. 'Is there a phone?'

  'If Mother says it's okay, I can bring you one. You won't have long, though. Tracing, you know; we can't be too careful. You mustn't tell anyone where you are, not even a hint. Oh, by the way - probably best if you stay in tonight. Not everyone knows who you are. Wouldn't want any misunderstandings, eh.'

  'Thanks.' He shut the door and threw the bolt. The cabin consisted of two rooms - the kitchen/lounge/bedroom and the toilet/bathroom. Metal louvres covered the windows; the walls and cupboards were timber veneer. Anything not veneer was white, except the orange bedspread and the grey lino. Simple, featureless, but more comfortable than a hole in the ground.

  Kevin sniffed a carafe of blood on the table. Still warm, smelling unmistakably of cow. He hesitated, wondering if he'd be able to smell if anything had been added, knockout drugs or something, then decided if they'd wanted him out of the way, they could've done it easily enough already. The drink hardly touched the sides. When he'd drained the last, he headed for the shower where the steaming water inspired his mind to wander from one absurd thought to another, ending with the notion of creating a vampire cow. Fearing for his own sanity but strangely tickled by the idea, he towelled off and changed into the clothes Cassie had provided. She'd guessed the size well.

  He slouched on the bed, restless after days of motion, enjoying being clean, licking his lips as though he might find a trace of dinner he hadn't already absorbed. He stared at his foot, marvelling at how flesh and bone had grown back, and how much it still itched, on the inside, where he couldn't scratch it. He tried to wriggle the stubby toes, hoping they wouldn't turn out webbed or hoofed or something equally weird. He was concentrating on imagining his foot with five normal toes when a knock at the door made him jump. He pulled the bolt back cautiously.

  'You decent?' Cassie asked.

  'The clothes fitted fine, thanks,' he said. 'Though I could, um, use another drink.' He pointed to the empty carafe, its insides dripping with the sticky remains of his meal.

  'I'll see what I can do. Here, swap you.' She held out a mobile phone. 'Three minutes. No mention of where we are, okay?'

  'Cool. Tell Mo- Danica, that I appreciate it. My family…' his voice tailed off as a surge of emotion cramped his cheeks and jaw. Heat rose behind his eyes. He shut himself in the en suite, sat on the loo and stared at the phone as he summoned his courage, tried to find the words. Tears blurred his vision. What the hell could he tell her? Better to ring Meg. Meg could pass a message on. He dialled. The phone clicked like a Geiger counter before he heard it starting to ring at the other end. Seven chirps in, it was answered.

  'Hello?'

  Words stuck in his throat like chicken bones.

  'Hello?' she asked. 'Who is
this?'

  Tears rolled down his cheeks. Very slowly, he cancelled the call and leaned against the wall, hand on the phone trying to hold on to that connection to Meg.

  The dingo howled and Kevin straightened, wiped his eyes, sniffed. It sounded as though vehicles had pulled up in the compound. There was a burble of voices, broken by shouts and calls. Kevin returned to the bedroom.

  'That was quick,' Cassie said, taking the phone.

  'No answer,' he told her. 'What's going on?'

  'Mother's called a powwow.'

  'What about?'

  She shrugged and headed for the door.

  'Can I come?'

  'Probably best you stay here.'

  Kevin was sick of being told to rest, to relax, to take it easy. He opened the metal louvre, but Cassie was out of sight, and all he could see was the glow of headlights, not the source. Dogs barked and whined. He smelled wood smoke, wafting in with the sound of sticks being tapped together. There was a guitar; the eerie wail of a didgeridoo; people crying.

  Taipan had brought him this far because he thought Kevin might be useful, but Danica had said he wasn't. Which left Kevin where? At worst, a threat; at best, an annoyance. If decisions were being made about his future, then he wanted to be there. He slipped out the door. Using the cover of trees and sheds, he crept toward the slight dip that hid the gathering from sight.

  A couple of four-wheel-drives were parked facing it, their headlights aglow, and he crouched, the better to slink across the open ground to that hump of ant nest there, about waist high, but if he crawled-

  The world shifted, the darkness shimmering like curtains overlaid by phantom places and times, linked by one overriding sensation: don't get caught. Taipan, creeping through his supernatural life, decades of reflex and skill rising up through Kevin's mind and muscles. One moment wrapped around him and pulled him under…

  He's in a street he knows - just knows - is in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley and there's a club that is identified only by a shut door and a naked bulb above it illuminating the street number, and outside there's a man in a suit, and they get to talking. They end up in a nearby alley with a mesh gate and overflowing bins, and the smell of decaying garbage and stale piss and a blocked gutter rises around them. The man has his slug out and Kevin's on his knees in the muck of the sidewalk, sinking his fangs into the man's femoral.

  As hot blood gushes, the man comes across his shoulder. And he knows then, from the blood, that the man's a dentist who takes a little too much pleasure when patients - young patients - are under the gas, that the man's wife wouldn't approve of him doing that nor of him being here, they have children of their own for Christ's sake, and he thinks then that maybe those nuns back out in the bush were on to something after all.

  Maybe no one is innocent. Maybe they will all be judged and found wanting when they die. But he won't die. He's been judged already. In a world without innocence, he can fit right in. But there's his sister. Willa is not evil. She did not deserve this; she is not this. He will set her free. He will save her. Even if he has to damn himself to do it-

  Someone shook his shoulder and he jumped. Had someone discovered him, there with that body on the pavement and the blood on his mouth and the sprog on his shoulder?

  He whirled, ready to strike, ready to flee.

  Acacia stood beside him, and he wasn't in the alley. He was in the paddock, vulnerable, lost.

  'This isn't the best place for bloodwalking, Kevin.'

  'Yeah, no.' He wiped his face, surprised to find it clean; hunger surged through him, fuelled by the memory, his body trembling. He stepped away from her, quickly, but quietly, Taipan's stealth clinging.

  She held his arm. 'You might as well come with me. See what's what.'

  'Sure.'

  'It's good that you can ride it,' she said as she led him toward the gathering. 'Use that lifestream stuff when you need it. You just gotta make sure it doesn't take you over, eh.'

  'It's intense.'

  'Makes it harder to keep it under control, but you have to if you don't want to get lost in bedlam. Here, sit with Cassie and me.'

  The headlights had been killed. More than a dozen people sat in a circle around a bonfire, as many showing red eyes as green. They formed clumps of twos and threes, except for Taipan who sat more or less by himself, and nearby, Danica, cross-legged, with her two dogs sprawled on either side.

  'That fella shouldn't be here,' Taipan said. 'He's tainted.'

  'No moreso than I am,' Danica said. 'We will pass the blood.'

  'He's a threat.'

  Murmuring followed Taipan's assertion and Kevin squirmed under the attention, wishing he'd followed Cassie's advice and stayed away.

  'That didn't stop you bringin' him here,' Acacia said.

  'It was worth it to get a shot at Max's bloodhag.'

  'Enough,' Danica told them, and the group fell to silence, the crackle of the flames replacing the muttering and whispers. 'The chalice.'

  Hippie took a silver cup to her and she used her knife to open her arm. She bled into the cup and then Hippie took it around the circle.

  'Peace be with you,' he said as each vampire drank from it. Acacia drank, her eyes shut; she swayed slightly as Hippie took it back. He paused in front of Kevin.

  'Him too,' Danica said. 'Taipan made him; he's one of us.'

  Kevin sipped the blood; numbness spread through him. The vestiges of Taipan's experiences drifted away. He saw the hollow with sudden clarity, his senses as sharp as the twinkle of stars, the snap of timber in the fire.

  Hippie handed the chalice back to Danica. She stood and spilled a little into the fire, saying, 'This is for our lost souls, may they travel in peace,' and someone sobbed, a single cry as brutal as a rifle shot.

  Danica set the chalice down so the dogs could lick it clean. 'And now, we of the long night will bleed for our brothers and sisters who still share the day.'

  Hippie handed her another chalice, larger than the first, and this time he took the knife for each vampire to slice and bleed. By the time the cup reached Kevin at the end of the line, it was almost full.

  'Not you,' Danica said.

  Taipan snorted, and Kevin sat, feeling dirty and alone, as the chalice went to each red-eye. Some groaned as they drank, reminding him of Penny as she sucked down Reg's blood; others, like Cassie, might've been drinking milk for all the reaction they showed, little more than a swipe of the tongue across the lips.

  'The blood makes us one,' Danica said, again letting the dogs clean the cup. 'Before we discuss our current situation, Acacia has an item of business.'

  Acacia held Cassie's hand. 'I would like to offer Cassie the long night.'

  'I respectfully decline,' Cassie said.

  'Please, Cassie; the blood isn't holding. You're in the tremors.'

  'I'm okay. I can go another month. And another one after that.'

  'Jesus, girl, is the sun so important to you?'

  'No, but you are. You need someone to watch your back. Now more than ever.'

  'We could watch each other's.'

  Danica interrupted. 'It's her decision, Acacia.'

  'It's the wrong one.'

  'Not when it's made from love.'

  Taipan said, 'Acacia's right, though. We need new blood. Untainted.'

  'The dreamwalks are gettin' stale, it's true,' said someone else, Lions maybe.

  'We're hardly in a position for a recruitment drive,' Danica said.

  'But we'll need more if we're to hold off Max's mob,' Taipan argued.

  'Not when we're on the road. The only plus from this whole tragedy is that with less of us, our mobility is increased.'

  'So where are we runnin' to next?' Taipan asked.

  'West, I'm thinking. Maybe into the NT. I'm open to suggestions.'

  'Jesus,' Acacia said, 'I've spent my whole life tryin' to get away from the Territory.'

  'We're gonna run outta places to hide,' Taipan said. 'We should use that fella's taint to track Mira an
d take her out.'

  'I don't want to hear this,' Danica said.

  'And he probably shouldn't. Just in case that bloodhag is smarter than you think. She might have some new tricks, eh.'

  'Fine. Cassie can walk him back while we talk this out.'

  Kevin stood, but paused as Cassie gestured for him to walk with her. He looked around the circle, acutely aware of the animosity and curiosity directed at him. 'For the record, I want out. I'll learn whatever it is you think I need to know, but then I'm gone.'

  'Don't let the door hit you in the arse,' Taipan said.

  'We'll talk tomorrow, Kevin,' Danica said. 'Once you're trained, well, then you decide what path is best.'

  He followed Cassie. When they were out of earshot, he said, 'Taipan and the boss got a difference of opinion, eh.'

  'I guess.'

  'So why is it that the vampires drink her blood only, while you red-eyes get a brew? I'd've thought the vamps would get your juice to suck on.'

  'They do. Ours, cattle, whatever. But vampires, usually, won't drink each other's, not even as brew. Too many lives in there. Too much confusion.'

  'Like me seeing all of Taipan's shit in his blood.'

  'If you say so.'

  'So by drinking Danica's, they get only her shit.'

  'Not even. Mother's got the knack. She can keep the noise down; she can still the cacophony in others.'

  'The cock-what?'

  'The ghosts. Bedlam. When you've swallowed too many, when you carry too many, all those lifestreams can send you loopy. You get crazy, and then you fall into a kind of coma. Kind of like Alzheimer's, except, instead of remembering nothing, you remember everything. Everything from everyone you've ever drained. Anyway, Mother can make it go away. There's something in her blood.'

  'Who makes it go away for her?'

  'No one. Taipan says she's losing touch, that she needs fresh blood, fresh lives. The funny thing is, of all of them, she's the one who doesn't need to worry. She's kind of immune to bedlam. She can control the ghosts really well. By drinking from her, the rest of them get a little bit of it, too. Enough to keep them sane. It's not a licence to slaughter, but. She's got her limits.'

  'Well, that's comforting.'