The Big Smoke

by Jason Nahrung

The bouncer went down.

  The competitors scattered in a clash of skates. People screamed. A few, then a herd charged toward the doors.

  'Grab her,' Mel shouted at Kevin as Rabbit pushed past, screaming, 'Johnny!'

  Kevin snatched, got a handful of hair, only to have it come off in his hand. Bloody wig!

  Rabbit collided with a fleeing person, caught her balance, made to set off.

  Kevin snared her top and reefed her down on her back with a whuff of air.

  Mel decked Rabbit's friend as she moved to help. 'Grab her! This way! Out the back!'

  He grasped Rabbit under the arms and hauled. Mel cleared a path through the exodus.

  More shots sounded and a nearby window shattered. Shards flew from the wall: Hunter, pistol in a two-handed grip, trying his luck as he fought through the chaos. Had his hands not been full, Kevin might've flipped him the bird. Any doubt that VS knew he was in town had been extinguished.

  The surging crowd swept him outside. Taipan's instincts overcame Kevin's, leaving his consciousness sidelined, while his maker's muscle memory raced him through the throng: punching, blocking, dodging.

  Rabbit twisted and yanked in his grip; the crowd jostled them. Someone darted at him, a knife flashing. He decked him in a crunch of bone, a reflex both wonderful and terrifying.

  When Kevin reached the Monaro, there was blood on his hands, but he still had Slick's girl, struggling and swearing and very much afraid.

  Greaser hauled the door open and pushed the seat forward. 'You're making friends, ain'tcha?'

  Kevin shoved the girl in the rear and locked the seat in place as she flew at him, nails flashing, screaming to be let go.

  'Where's Mel?' Greaser asked.

  'She's... she was right behind me.'

  They looked toward the stadium: smoke spilled from one end, gunshots sounded. Cars revved around them. The air was filled with smoke and exhaust and screams.

  'Shit, I'll have to go back.'

  Sirens announced that might not be a good idea. Greaser said, 'Don't be an idiot. She can look after herself. We need to clear out.'

  She glared at him and added, 'But man, if anything's happened to her, I'll kill you myself.'

  FIFTEEN

  Reece sat back on his haunches beside the body, holstered his pistol and pulled out his tobacco pouch. Sweat dripped from his nose, stuck his shirt to his skin. Around him, cars streamed for the exits; bees fleeing the hive in a buzz of motors and shouts, exhaust hanging thick and choking in the humid night air.

  Felicity hobbled over to where he sat outside the entrance Matheson had disappeared through. Her left arm was propped inside her tattered jacket, making her look like a Napoleon who'd been through a blender. Half her face was a raw swipe mark, the other half soot-stained and splattered with blood. She stank of burned hair and raw offal — something she'd stepped in, perhaps. Her vest had offered some protection from the blast.

  'Slick?' he asked.

  'Bits 'n' pieces. After the waiter went boom, some massive motherfucker in a Driza-Bone did some slicing and dicing. Four arms. You know him?'

  'Four arms?' Always a new surprise in this job, but this was a new kind of special.

  'Uh-huh. Took Slick's head with some kind of machete.'

  Reece mumbled an expletive and finished rolling his cigarette. Johnny Slick hadn't been particularly forthcoming during their short exchange. Maybe having Reece's pistol pushed up under his jaw might've had something to do with that.

  'How's the head, Slick?' he'd asked on entering the booth.

  'Dunno what you mean,' Slick had replied, barely looking up from his blood soda. The greaseball looked plenty pale. A round through the head would do that. He was lucky it hadn't done permanent damage, but then, with mutts like Slick, you could never be certain.

  'You've been out of bounds.'

  'Prove it.'

  'I was there, sport. I traded slugs with your merry band of fuck-knuckles. I've got you on film. You don't want me to call in the full GS, do you? Maybe spread the headaches around?'

  'As if you could. The Old Man's losing his grip. He's toothless. You're toothless.'

  'This isn't.' He pushed Slick's head back with the gun.

  'You won't get three steps,' Slick muttered.

  'There's no guarantee you will, either. Not at this range. Probably take out your spine. Maybe the brain stem.'

  Felicity stood at the door, covering the muscle.

  'Now, who sent you to do over the tattooist?'

  He'd looked at Reece, then at Felicity, then back to Reece, and smiled.

  'I did it for the money.'

  Then Felicity interrupted: 'Is that the grease monkey over there? Hassling Slick's squeeze?'

  'What's that?' Slick said, and Reece had backed away with a warning about making any sudden moves.

  It'd been Matheson, all right. With some goth chick.

  'One of the Romantics,' Felicity told him. 'Blake's moll.'

  Reece headed for the stairs and Matheson spotted him. Then the waiter had pushed past with an order, and he'd heard Slick say, 'What the fuck's this? We got our drinks already,' and there was a gunshot, and then the explosion.

  And here they were. Slick in bits 'n' pieces, Felicity out on her feet and Reece feeling decidedly seedy.

  They'd been lucky; albeit inadvertently, Matheson had saved their lives.

  'What've you got there?' Felicity asked as she holstered her weapon.

  'Blake's moll.'

  He'd found her in the chaotic exodus of rockabillies and bobby-soxers. Staked her, right through the fucking heart. But Matheson had got away.

  Sirens approached. The car park emptied.

  'We're going to lose, aren't we?' Felicity said, and he heard, saw, the fear. Ever since he'd been convinced to serve Mira, he'd had the underlying belief that he was on the wrong side. He could imagine, though, how the realisation must've come as a shock to Felicity.

  'The game's not over yet,' he said. 'Little miss eyeliner here is an accessory after the fact. I'm sure Maximilian will get something out of her.'

  'Poor bitch,' Felicity said.

  SIXTEEN

  Heinrich and two of his personal bodyguard from the elite Fallschirmjaeger — crème de la crème of the GS, eagle flashes on their shoulders marking them as the truly obnoxious — were waiting with a trolley when Reece and Felicity arrived at Thorn. With the streeter strapped down, they rode the express lift to 13. Reece hated going to 13. It's where the reality of the city was most tenuous. That Heinrich's bulk filled the lift didn't help. Maximilian's right-hand man said nothing, just stood with his feet apart and hands behind his back, staring at the doors as though daring them to stick and give him an excuse to tear them apart.

  The doors opened and the troopers wheeled the trolley down a softly lit hall to the conference room. Through the windows, traffic pulsed like corpuscles, all red and white, running in and out through the city's dark veins and arteries.

  The troopers took guard at the door. More eagle flashes; Heinrich's men.

  Reece helped himself to water from the cooler and studied the view. He could see the room reflected in the window. Felicity seemed unsure what to do; she smoothed Melpomene's skirt, though it didn't need it, and then walked over as though to also pour a drink but then changed her mind. The burn had left an ugly mark across her cheek and ear; it'd be a day or two before it was fully healed.

  Maximilian entered. He stalked over to the girl on the trolley and studied her. The stake glinted amid the black material of her dress.

  'This is not the mechanic,' he said, sounding confused. 'Nor is it Johnny Slick.'

  'Slick's dead,' Reece said. 'This girl was with the mechanic.'

  'She's Blake's progeny,' Felicity added. 'The villein who runs the Romantics.'

  Maximilian fixed her with his gaze. 'I know who Blake is. What I don't know is what his Blütkind was doing with the mechanic.'

  'Blake does dirty deeds for the Needle,' Felicity sai
d.

  'Ah.' Maximilian stroked the girl's hair, almost paternally. 'So this girl is our bridge, from Blake to the Needle to the mechanic. She can carry our message. And what of the leak?'

  'We have a possible conduit, but we still don't know the source.' Reece looked at Heinrich, who stared through him at the city. 'Someone who doesn't want the Strigoi to recover, would be my guess.'

  'She was not popular, my daughter,' Maximilian said. 'She wore her power boldly; brashly.'

  He called Heinrich over and concentrated on the girl, patting her cheek, her hair.

  Heinrich told Felicity she'd been seconded to the Gespenstenstaffel, and with what seemed a glint of relish in his eyes, ordered Reece to report to the second floor. 'It's ticket collecting for you, Private. Maybe you can manage that.'

  'The leak?' Reece asked.

  'No longer your concern. Now that you're fodder. Give Marshall my regards. I believe you two have established quite the rapport.'

  A guard opened the door. Reece and Felicity stepped through to the foyer, almost running into two Hunters.

  'Step aside, old timer,' one said.

  'Why, if it isn't Laurel and Hardy,' Reece replied.

  The two men paused, blocking their way: Newman, with his no neck and vulpine eyes, his designer suit crisp and shiny; and Petersen, older but no less rapacious with his hatchet face and balding head and slightly rumpled suit, a ruffled rooster full of piss and vinegar.

  'You're out, Cagney and Lacey,' Newman said. 'Time to let the professionals take over.'

  Reece felt Felicity bridle, but he took her forearm and led her away. Two GS troopers were at the lift, waiting to make sure they left.

  'Great,' Felicity said as the doors slid shut. 'Fucking great.'

  'Sorry. Looks like you're riding the soup vans for a bit longer.'

  'Not your fault.' She caressed his arm, her fingers lingering. 'I can't believe he busted you to Security.'

  'See out my days behind a desk. Checking the doors. Patting down visitors. Not so bad.'

  'You'll hate it.'

  He shrugged. 'Bar?'

  'Shouldn't we report?'

  'He wasn't specific on the when.'

  'You're going to be cleaning latrines by the end of the week.'

  'It's all just shovelling shit.'

  She laughed. 'Sure. Let me freshen up first. Half an hour?'

  He let her out on the sixth floor, where the Hunters had their quarters, and he realised with a sense of surprise that he would miss his room on 3.

  He went back up to 11, and got as far as the observation room, and only then because he knew the nurse. 'Absolutely no visitors', she said, by order of the Hospitaller himself, Herr Doktor Tran. She spoke into a phone once she'd left him.

  It didn't matter. Mira was in no condition to talk. He eyed her through the thick one-way glass. The walls were padded, the minimal furniture and bed shaped from moulded plastic. She wore a white gown, her hair black amid the white. Her arms had been covered in protective sleeves to prevent her from gnawing herself.

  It was a far cry from the Mira he knew. Her flesh, cold and tight, and then running hot and soft with his blood. How, in those early days, when he'd drunk too much, and spewed, and depending on her mood, she'd mocked him, or sympathised, or been angry at the waste, as though his inability to hold his drink was a personal insult: 'Do you squander my gift?'

  And that laugh, and her fingers in his hair, and on his cock, and her legs opening to him, though it meant little to her, not after the blood, though sometimes, sometimes he thought maybe, just maybe, he'd touched her, that the groan was real, skin on skin rather than blood in vein. Love in vain. Old habits.

  Mira looked up from where she sat on the hospital bed, staring, as though she could sense his presence.

  Maybe she could, at some level of awareness. Her left arm still held several rings of scar tissue showing her active blood links: one for Vee, one for Kevin Matheson, one for Reece, one for Felicity. In anyone else those links would've dissolved by now without fresh blood to renew them. But Mira was Strigoi, a bloodhag of the highest order.

  He could still feel her, way down in his system; forty years of mutual feeding didn't just evaporate. But her blood had lost its potency. He was in menopause, slowly reverting to merely mortal as the vampire essence failed to fight off normal aging. He was slowing down. Maybe a desk job was all he was fit for.

  She stood, making him frown. She was in bedlam, trapped in the tempest of all the lives she'd imbibed, her sanity being torn apart by the ghosts of those she'd taken into herself. Preservation, to some; collection, to others.

  Once, Reece would've called it murder.

  She shouldn't even know he was here. She shouldn't even know where she was.

  And yet she hobbled to the mirror and raised a hand, then two, and laid her face against the glass so her cheek pressed flat and distorted in his vision. Her lips were cracked, her fangs out, her eyes swirling with purple and green in the subdued light of her room.

  In his mind, he saw a car. Yellow, with a thick black stripe on the bonnet. A classic.

  He smiled, held his fingers to her lips, and turned as the door opened and the orderlies arrived. 'By orders of—'

  'Yeah, yeah.'

  At the lift, security men in olive uniforms waited to usher him to his new quarters. The lift stopped one floor down. Marshall got in, the Green Shirts got out.

  'I hear you're one of mine, now.' Her smile chilled him.

  'The intimation was that I already was.'

  'The mechanic will come for the poet's girl, you think?'

  'He came for his mother and his girlfriend out west. That didn't end well. For anyone.'

  'Then we'd better find him, hadn't we?'

  'I was told I was off the case.'

  'I thought you were told you were working for me.'

  He watched the numbers count down. The lift felt like a vice, closing in on all sides.

  'You like him,' Marshall said.

  'Like is too strong a word.'

  'Respect, then. Pity?'

  'Do not doubt that I will do my duty, Madam Marshall.'

  'Not for one minute. File a full report to me, then get some rest, Reece. I've got you on the day shift.'

  He groaned.

  'Since The Debacle, we've been on twelve-hour rotas, stretching the manpower. Besides, it won't hurt for you to be off the night shift's radar for a bit.'

  The doors slid open. Marshall got out. The lift continued its downward journey.

  SEVENTEEN

  Kevin pulled the Monaro into a side street. Houses slumped behind sagging fences; yards were overgrown, walls stained, windows curtained.

  The scent of blood and gunpowder filled the car. Hunger and adrenaline had reduced Kevin's vision to shotgun barrels. Greaser hugged her door, Taser in one hand as she watched his every move.

  Rabbit hunched in the back seat, her face smeared with tears. 'What are you going to do?'

  'Get your skates off the seat,' Kevin told her, needing to be brutish, afraid for Mel and afraid for this girl. His voice grated out, strained by the dryness of his mouth, the effort of control.

  She lowered her feet, her knees pressed tight together, hands balled in her lap.

  He tried to block his senses, to still the hunger that had pricked at the smell and sight of her fear and blood and sweat, the hammer of heart and pulse of artery.

  Ride it, he told himself. Use it. But don't give in to it. He gripped the steering wheel in both hands and found Rabbit's eyes in the rear-view mirror.

  'Tell me who sent Slick to capture me, and you can walk. That's the deal.'

  'I don't know what you're talking about.'

  Kevin turned, appraising her through the gap between the front seats. His gums ached momentarily as his fangs extended. 'Your blood won't lie.'

  She shivered, her arms locked across her breasts, her legs twitching.

  'Think of the upholstery, Kev,' Greaser said, her voice tight
.

  'Someone inside Thorn,' Rabbit said. 'High up, Slick said. Cocky, he was, like we was finally getting some recognition. Maybe even make the jump to vassal. Sky's the limit, that's what he said. I'd be a made girl, he said.' Tears tracked her make-up. Her lip trembled. Glitter sparkled in the smudged eyeliner around her eyes. 'Do you think he's... Oh god.'

  'Can't you tell?' Greaser asked. 'You're his moll, after all.'

  'I can't feel him.' She rubbed her arms. Her voice cracked. 'I can't feel him at all.'

  'Did he say who?' Kevin asked. 'Think. Who sent him after me?'

  'Just someone close to the top who needed a favour. Snatch and grab; or decap, if it came to it. I told Johnny it was a bad idea. Out of our league, I said.' She rubbed her face, sniffed. 'He didn't agree. The bloody idiot.'

  Kevin stepped from the car, walked around and got Greaser to let Rabbit out. The roller girl hesitated; he gestured angrily as though he might change his mind. She clomped, ungainly on her skates, onto the grass verge, keeping as far from him as she could.

  A glint on her jacket caught his eye: a dancing skeleton brooch. He stepped closer, pointing. 'Slick had this design on his van.'

  Rabbit cupped a hand over it. 'It's mine.'

  'Her badge,' Greaser said, and flicked one amid the cluster on her own jacket: a long-nosed, long-legged bird that Kevin had mistaken for a kiwi though now he could see they were nothing alike. 'Mine's a snipe, see? Shows I run with the Needle's outfit. Dancing skeleton means the Viscounts.'

  Kevin pulled Rabbit's hands away. She fell to her knees and he tore the brooch from the material.

  'Well,' he said, pocketing the brooch, 'you won't be needing that, wherever you're going.'

  'Who were they?' she asked. 'Who did this to us?'

  'You don't know?' Kevin asked.

  She shook her head, then reached to him; he helped her up.

  'What's so special about you?' Rabbit asked. 'That you're worth dying for?'

  'Nothin', as far as I'm concerned.'

  'Is that Snipe your top girl?'

  'I don't have a top girl,' he said, disengaging himself.

  She bit her lip, tugged at her clothes to straighten them, pushed her matted fringe from her forehead with shaking fingers. 'I know people. I could help you.'